Japanese Advice

One of the many reasons I love living in Japan.  This is an email snippet from our church choir director, who is Japanese:

Please don't catch cold, stay warm and healthy

(drink ginger tea or ginger soup is helpful these days....)

Make a good ginger drink;

Cut couple ginger slice, honey(or brown sugar), lemon(if you like) and add hot water.

Make good ginger soup;

Grated ginger, bonito, chopped long onion, little bit of soy sauce, add boiled water

Easy and healthy..... Stay warm

 I do believe I must now try these :).  Hope you, too, stay healthy and warm!

*Bonito is tiny flakes of dried fish, often used as a flavorful topping or to make dashi stock (mild fish/seaweed broth)

Reset Button

I am terrible at time management.  Always have been.  It's not so much that I don't know how to plan my time, it's that I have virtually no feeling of its passing.  When I was a kid it drove my mom and teachers nuts.  As an adult?  Let's just say it can become a major problem.

Enter The Internet.

The internet has most recently become my biggest time suck.  As in hours of my day gone.  Daily.  I couldn't even remember what it was I was reading.  Drastic measures were needed.

I waved goodbye to Facebook for the last week, swore off email, surfing, and TV, and limited my reading to the Bible and Bible studies I've been woefully neglecting.  A one-week RESET.

I'm here to say I survived.  It was challenging and refreshing.  I wish I could go longer but technology truly is the way we link to our world since a) I don't work outside our home, and b) It is the primary mode of communication both for our local community and our family on the other side of the world.

I'm trying to slowly reintegrate computer usage into my day but with some boundaries.  I started this blog because I needed a place to see my thoughts in print and to keep a little sanity in our crazy life.  It hasn't been working because by the time I wade through emails, Facebook, blogs, and surfing, the baby's crying, the dog's going ballistic, my husband wants to know what's for dinner, and I'm already 15 minutes late for my meeting.  I've been forfeiting peace and clarity for Facebook drama and a list of crafts I'll never finish in 10 lifetimes.

I've neglected friends and responsibilities, I've traded needs for wants, I've turned my priorities upside down.  If I've hurt you because of this I am truly sorry.

I'm moving on.  I'm putting my priorities back where they should be.  I'm (hopefully) growing and experiencing the pains that go with it but I know it's worth it.  That God is worth it.  That my family is worth it.  That my friends are worth it.

Please pray for me and know that I am praying for you, too.

Peace.

I'm Still Alive

So just a quick update, since I appear to have fallen off the face of the planet:

Life's been busy, or not, depending on how you look at it.

I LOVE staying home with Baby Bird and she's been tickling us left and right with the funny things she does and says.  She's entered the age of cute and silly but hasn't quite gotten to the defiant stage.  We're hoping to skirt around that one as long as possible!  We've dabbled in the idea of elimination communication (also known as infant pottying) and so far it seems to have paid off - we're "catching" more and more trips to the potty and therefore having to wash fewer diapers.  I'm a big fan of less laundry.  From the looks of things she may well learn independent pottying early - yay!  Of course now that I've said that it'll probably come back to bite me...

We're at the decision point for military career choices.  We have about a year and a half till our assignment here ends and the enlistment runs up at the same time.  Stay in?  Get out?  Go Guard or Reserves?  Move to Tahiti?  We have way more questions than answers right now but I think that's okay.  God is good and we know He has a plan, we just need to figure out how to listen!

I've always loved baking and recently started decorating cakes for friends' birthday parties and such.  It's been going well enough that *gasp* I'm working on starting up my very first home business!  Thrilling and scary at the same time.  I'm not sure our kitchen will ever be the same.  Did I mention this new line of business is absolutely terrible for my waistline?  Thank goodness for friends who are willing to sacrifice by tasting all my trial run goodies!

Well, that's us in a nutshell right now - busy but in a generally peaceful way, and trying to follow where God leads us.  Life is good and God's even better!

On Jesus and Peace in the Midst of Life

I think I needed this right now.  Hope it helps someone else too.


Peace!

Finding Peace within Chaos

Nothin' Like New Books

New Bible study for this year:

I'm giddy as a schoolchild opening up brand new books on the first day of school!  Or wait, was I the only kid that got excited about that...?  I don't know - I just love the smell, look, feel, unexplored territory of brand new books!

With all the internet chatter about the first day of school, especially the first day of homeschool, I wondered if I'd be as excited about new curricula each year as some of the families seem to be.  Well, given how I jittered about in anticipation opening my new Bible study I think that answer is yes, it'll be like Christmas every year!  Did I mention... I love books!

Well that was short-lived.

Nurse-in was canceled.  And not in a good way.  More details to follow.  By the way, anyone with experience with  breastfeeding in the military, please speak up, we could really use some words of wisdom about now.

First Nurse-In

Is it silly that I'm ridiculously excited about attending my first nurse-in?

Background:
A mother nursing her child at our base's E-Club was asked to cover up or leave.  Hmm... yeah... you can't actually require a nursing woman to do either.

Result:
We're staging a simple, quiet nurse-in at the same location.  The idea is for people to come, eat lunch at the restaurant, nurse if they have a nursling, and show support with numbers.  We'll have a copy of the applicable federal laws on hand if anyone cares to ask.  T-shirts for the munchkins are in the works.  T-shirts will read:  "Anytime.  Anywhere.  Doing my part to normalize nursing in public."  They may not be the most creative t-shirts ever, but they'll hopefully get the point across.

Man, the things I never dreamed I'd be doing, much less enjoying!