Oh my goodness! It is October already! What happened to the rest of the year???? Why does time move so slowly when you are a child and then pass so darn fast when you are older and have so much to do? Let's all vote to slow it down to the crawl that it was when we were younger! ;-)

Last week my husband found out that his liver isn't doing the job that it should and he is full of toxins. The doctor put him on a de-tox diet. My husband is banned from eating everything that he likes and everything we have in the house!

Well, that's not completely true, but that is how I felt when I read the list of foods he couldn't eat! The foods that have been removed are the ones that have a tendency to cause food allergies in people. My husband has to stay off of them for a month and then can reintroduce them one every three days to find out if it is food allergies causing the problem.

So, I went to the store and had to buy a whole bunch of stuff I normally don't buy. I had to buy some rather expensive items that aren't necessary, but will add texture and flavor to the dishes I will be preparing. Of course, all the special foods never go on sale and never have coupons in the paper! There goes this month's food budget!

I don't enjoy cooking and this has created a bit of a nightmare for me. I have to break out of my regular routine of fixing the things everyone likes and that are easy to prepare. I will be fixing different things for my sons sometimes so will be cooking six meals a day instead of three. It is making my brain hurt trying to come up with tasty variations on the same foods!

Then, I am having to find places to store new things. My kitchen cupboards were full already and now I have a stack of new things that need a home. I'm having to wrap rubber bands around the things in the refrigerator that are off limits to my sons. They will drink those expensive fruit juices in a heartbeat if I let them!

So, today I will be busy doing things that weren't on my agenda last week. Speaking of which, I better get busy! I have to go to the store, too. Now that I need one on a regular basis, I find my blender is dead. Sheesh!

Now that my hubby is on a diet, I figured I would eat the same things with him. I could stand to lose some weight. I'm not going on as strict a diet as he is, though! I wouldn't do that unless I had to!

Link to the 10/1/01 Bible study.

Whew! It's amazing how tired the rest of you gets when your brain is on overload! This diet of my husband's (the de-tox diet I told you about last week) is causing me to have to go to great lengths that are outside my area of expertise and outside my comfort zone! I told you, I don't like to cook. I usually always went with the quick and easy meals and now I'm having to spend a lot of time being creative with very little to work with. The list of foods my husband cannot eat is a mile long!

My husband is also supposed to reduce his stress level. Well, it's football season and, as a coach, he is stressing over trying not to stress as the team's record is the worst it has been since some time in the '80's. They are at 1-4. So, I am going overboard trying to keep my husband from having to think about his food. I want him to be satisfied with his meals and not be thinking about the foods he cannot have. So far I think it is working.

My house is an absolute mess. Well, not the whole house, but it feels that way. My kitchen is the main problem. I was working the band's field show fund raiser all day Saturday. I was on my feet for about 15 hours.

Then yesterday I was making a mess in there as I always do cooking separate meals for my husband and for the rest of the family. I was too tired to clean as I went. When the dirty dishes begin a third layer on top of the bottom two layers of dirty dishes then it began looking like a tornado had hit! I also have dirty dishes from Saturday's field show as I volunteered the use of some of my nice serving bowls.

That is one thing I have to get done today. There are two other things that must get done as well. I have to come up with more tasty meals for my hubby and I have a pile of band uniform pants that need to be hemmed. Saturday will be their first competition of the season. They will be needing pants. Wait, is it in the rules that they need to wear pants? I'll have to check on that! ;-)

Link to the 10/8/01 Bible study.

Isn't that just great about good old Yahoo? (They have decided that I am getting too many hits on the Bible study and they are shutting me down for days at a time.) First they buy Geocities and now they are changing the rules. They used to encourage people to have lots of hits on their site. They would place sites that got lots of hits at the top of their directories. Now they are complaining that I'm tying up their bandwidth! Gee whiz! They're forcing their advertising on everyone that visits, so what's the big deal?

Their customer service stinks, so I'm searching elsewhere for web hosting. I think I found a good site. It will take a lot of time to redo everything. Well, it will be better in the long run. Maybe I need to invest some money in a web publishing program. I've been relying on freebies I've downloaded. As long as I have to spend money I might as well spend a bit more, eh?

Last week I wrote that my house was a mess. Well, I worked hard and spiffed things up and now, as I look around, things almost look as bad as they did last week! Toward the end of the week I was helping to adjust the hems on the band uniforms Each day's schedule was overflowing with things I needed to do. Then, as always, there were the unexpected surprises like our little truck breaking down.

Saturday was the band's first competition of the marching season. Report time was 5:30AM and I didn't get to bed until 2:00AM on Sunday morning. Sunday I took a nap in the afternoon and was a goner for three hours! That blew a huge hole in my day. I even missed evening church!

Today I'm moving a lot slower and much noisier. I have a kink in my back that feels like a knife stuck in my shoulder blade. I can't get a chiropractor appointment until Wednesday morning. So, as I am doing laundry and cleaning the kitchen and whatever else needs doing I am singing a loud song of pain. It bugs the cats, but that's OK. I'm used to getting weird looks!

Have you ever thought about how pride and greed are probably the two root causes of any evil in the world? The greed category holds lots of things. The "what about my wants/needs?" falls in that category. How often do you observe the "I," "ME," and "MY" in most things that people do? People place themselves in top priority position.

How many times have you been in a conversation with someone and every time you brought up a subject they turned it into a private soapbox to tell about themselves and their own experiences? How about those people that think they are more important than anyone else and cut in front of everyone on the freeway?

Then there is the pride issue. Many people are not willing to allow anyone else to know more than they do. They feel their own opinions are so special that they speak them as if they are the truth rather than just opinion. Pride causes people to feel they are better than others. They like to place themselves in positions of authority over others so they can fortify their feeling of being better.

Granted, it is very very difficult to defer to other people. After all, we are trapped inside our own brains and bodies. How can we help but to think that we are more special than others in some way? After all, who would know better than we how special we really are?? It is a natural feeling to want to "make our mark" and cause others to see how special we really are.

The thing we have to realize is that every single person (I repeat- -EVERY SINGLE PERSON) is just as special as we are. Not every person has the same talents and abilities, but we each are uniquely special. God created each of us with the same loving care. Jesus said the second greatest commandment was, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." He meant it! He won't tell us to do something without giving us the tools to do it. We have to choose to see other people through God's eyes. We have to choose to let ourselves fall to second place. Only with God's help can we succeed.

If everyone did that then we would be treated with the respect that we seek. Our needs/wants would be met as others would seek to do things for us. It is a much better plan and much more satisfying than the greed/pride route.

"Wait a minute! Most people won't do that! If I do it then I will diminish and others around me will increase!" First of all, you can only begin with yourself. You can't force anyone else to do it. It is a painful thing at times, but worth it. In God's eyes you will increase. God will bless your efforts. The things He can do to reward you far exceed anything the world can offer!

You may even be able to be the stone that is dropped in a pond and creates ripples of change. You might be the beginning of a new revolution of loving others more than yourself in your little corner of the world! However, the bottom line is that Jesus said to do it. If we choose not to then we are being defiant and disobedient. What do you think God thinks about that?

Link to the 10/15/01 Bible study.

I have been working on transferring web pages over to my new domain. What a job! I still have many hours of work left to do. It isn't just a matter of moving them. There are links that need to be updated and special coding that was exclusive to the Geocities web site that needs to be removed.

It's pretty exciting, though! There are many more options available at my own domain. The host, Christianwebhost.com has been very good so far. They are very helpful. I think I'm going to like having them as my new "landlord."

I'm not sure what new and exciting things will be over there that weren't over here, but the Lord has been telling me that it is going to be good. When He says something is going to be good..... well, you know!

I'll let you know when it is ready!

My back is still bothering me. It is better than it was, but not well yet. I've found that working in the kitchen aggravates it. There is something about reaching over the counter and reaching into the sink that pulls the bad place in my back. Since I'm not fond of cooking, those who know me well might think I have found a good excuse to not have to cook. Unfortunately, I still need to be taking care of things in the kitchen. My husband's de-tox diet is the reason.

His diet is creating a plethora (I like that word. It sounds cool. In case you haven't heard it, it means a great deal or a lot) of dirty dishes. Plus, I am spending a lot of time cooking different foods that he can eat as well as different foods for my sons when I am making my husband something they won't like.

The good news is that my husband is feeling better as well as losing weight. Friday he has a doctor appointment to see if his body is actually becoming de-toxed enough to start re-introducing some foods. I hope so! I feel like someone that has been given a package of mints and told to create a three-course meal out of it!

God is soooooo GOOD! The following story is better in the long version as the blessings are bigger and better, but I will give you the short version. You will just have to mentally add a "it's even better than this" at the end.

Saturday evening the high school band had a field show performance at a school approximately 20 miles away. As a parent booster, I had the job of towing one of two trailers that has things they need on it. About an hour before we were to leave I locked my keys in my truck. I had another set of keys in my hand, so didn't realize it until we were ready to go.

I quickly called my son and he brought me the spare key. I left the school about 15 or 20 minutes after everyone else. I placed everything in God's hands. I knew there was a good possibility that I wouldn't be able to get into the area where our other vehicles were as parking is usually on a first-come first-served basis. The next school arriving after ours would be packed in behind our trucks and busses.

Anyway, as I had no control over the parking situation, I left it in God's hands. Wellll....... when I got off the freeway and was heading down the home stretch toward the stadium, I was encountering one green light after another. ("Thank you, Lord! Thank you, Lord! Thank you.....") Traffic would clear when I needed to make lane changes. I CAUGHT THE BAND CARAVAN ABOUT A MILE BEFORE WE REACHED OUR DESTINATION! I was able to follow them right into the parking area! WHOOPIE!! (Like I said, it's even better than this, so add another WHOOPIE!!)

Has anyone else besides me been feeling a sense of anticipation in the air? It feels like God is getting ready to do something BIG!

Link to the 10/22/01 Bible study.

I fully intended to get this done yesterday. I actually was working on in Monday, but figured I'd be able to finish it yesterday. I ended up making phone calls and doing other things that were not on the schedule and ran out of day.

My entire week has slowly turned into a totally different schedule than what I had planned. I am working on this dark and early in the morning (bright and early doesn't describe most mornings as when it is bright it isn't so early any more!) before my devotional time. I found out my son made one of three players of the week for the football team and there is a breakfast to honor them this morning at the junior college. So, I want to attend that.

Then I have to drive to the next county to the place that wired my truck for the camper. My running lights and tail lights don't work. My mechanic tried to see if he could locate the problem and he narrowed it down to a sloppy wiring job. Great! I need to write to the camper manufacturer to complain about their "authorized representative." The camper is a great product, but these people they have on their list of representatives are far less than great and too far away from my house.

I'm not even going to mention that I was supposed to go to the grocery store yesterday and have to find a way to fit it in my schedule today. Oops, I mentioned it!

Most states in the United States suffer from Daylight Savings Time changes. Sunday was the first day of the changing back to standard time. Does anyone else find it as annoying and difficult as I do? My brain goes into overload when the darkness level outside does not correspond with what the clock says.

God gave us the ability to approximate the time of day without having to use clocks, but Daylight Savings messes that up. It is more refreshing for our brains to wake up naturally without having to hear an alarm ringing. Changing the clocks does put an extra stress load on our brains. Some people are able to adjust more quickly than others.

When I had young children, babies especially, it would be very difficult to force them to alter their time schedule to fit our new one. Even the babies would get irritable when they had to change their time for bed and time to eat. However, it was necessary in order to keep the rest of the family on time for school, work, sports, etc.

OK, I'm done venting now. Onwards and upwards!

I am singing the messy-house blues again! Since my back has been bothering me I've taken some shortcuts around here, like leaving piles of clean laundry around the house. My poor family has to search through piles that are scattered around the house. Wait! Hold the phone!!! In reality, they should only have to search once, collecting their own clothes as they went. That sure put a new perspective on the matter. In my mind it has gone from "poor family" to "they're getting what they deserve!" LOL!

My husband has been on his de-tox diet for over four weeks now. Even though it isn't a weight loss diet it has been good for that as well as he has lost 14 pounds!

We can start re-introducing foods one every three days to see if we can find out if he is allergic to any of them. I'm glad to be able to begin bringing foods back in because this diet of his has been hard. I've been working really hard to make a variety of different tasty meals so my husband doesn't start craving things. It is when he gets hungry that he begins to imagine what kinds of foods he'd like to be eating.

Saturday I had gone with the band to another all day event. I had left my husband with a list of foods he could have. As I thought might happen, he began examining the other items in the refrigerator that he couldn't have. That is why it has been important for me to be fixing his meals and keeping him out of the kitchen. Part of the de-tox regimen is for him to keep his stress level low. Wondering what you can eat and whether it will be good or not raises his stress level.

I need to buy more Tupperware. I already have a ton of it. I have stacks of them in my kitchen filled with different things. Now I need even more for the refrigerator. I need some kind of color-coding system so I can keep my husband's expensive foods separate from ours. I don't want him eating things that are not on his diet and I don't want my hungry sons wolfing down a small $5 jar of almond butter! Oh, isn't life just filled with one interesting thing after another??

Well, I really had better get busy. Not only do I have a full schedule today, but my husband's parents are coming to visit this weekend so they can watch my youngest play football Friday night and perform with the band on Saturday and my house is a mess. This is his last year in high school and they wanted to watch him one last time. I need to clean up the worst of the messes and camouflage the rest. (Oh, just ignore that pile. It is a science project... a volcano made out of clothes.)

Link to the 10/30/01 Bible study.