Things are quiet over here in Everyday Doxologies online existence world, primarily, because things are so noisy in the real life that is ours.

It's the pleasant time of spring-near-summer that the garden is at just the right point of looking beautiful before the ugliness and unruliness of production and bearing fruit and vegetables takes place.

This is just a short post to say that as I was driving in my car this morning, I nailed down three things that I "should" believe but don't often live like I believe.  (This was in relation to some ongoing challenges in our lives.)

1. God is for me.

2. God is with me.

3. God is powerful.

If I really REALLY believed those three statements----*especially* in the midst of hard moments---what would this world be like?  How would my life be changed? 

Water

So....a health challenge I haven't brought up here.
For the entire month of March (so far), I have not drunk anything except for water.  I have made an exception for green smoothies, because that's how we get the boys their vegetables several days a week.

Green Smoothies are serious business in our house.

 But no tea, coffee, fruit juices, sodas, etc.  I have allowed myself to be spoiled and spice up my water with a slice of lemon every now and then or a few drops of grapefruit essential oil.

But other than that... straight water.

Never have I craved my tea more than now.
Or coffee with dessert.  Because there's something so wrong about eating a piece of carrot cake without coffee.

We have a deal going on in our house.  If I work out 20 times in one month, our whole family is going to go to Tonic, a local juice bar and restaurant of locally grown and ethically sourced food.  This week I'm at five workouts in four days.  (We had a zumba instructor come to MOPS, so there was one workout I hadn't planned...)

Oh, my aching abs.

Chickens and Veggies

The chickens have finished their moulting and are producing eggs again.  To celebrate, we've had homemade souffles twice in the last two days.

This last week, we all watched a TEDx talk about organic farming and food allergens.  Million and I watched it first for homeschool, and then Michael and I watched it later and have been discussing it ever since.

We admitted that we don't know exactly what is in the food our chickens are eating and that it would be better for us to search out a source that had less mystery involved.  So our first string remedy is that I've e-mailed many of the grocers in town to determine what happens with their "bad" produce.  Secondly, we have found a source for organic chicken feed.

Why would we raise chickens for the nutritional benefit if we didn't even know what they were eating when we bought conventional chicken food (which could very likely be filled with soy and GMOs.)

Okay.  So there's that little step toward food freedom.

We've also decided that we're going to have a more intentional and focused garden this year and we'll be getting a large portion of our food from a CSA.  We've had fun with a CSA in the past, but the portions in the boxes were small.  We've been purchasing vegetables from the farm we've chosen, and this is their livelihood as opposed to a hobby farm (our first CSA choice a few years ago.)  We know the quality of their produce, and we also know that their will be sufficient supply, weather permitting. Our own garden will have the vegetables that we know how to grow well and that we know we use in large supply.

I'm going to take advantage of a few minutes of silence to type out a few thoughts. 

We're re-doing the larger portion of our house.  A lot of it is for personal pleasure, but we do have a larger goal of hospitality in mind.  

That being said, a lot of our furniture is being donated or repurposed.

Our craft cabinet has made its way into our bedroom.  And we'll be having a dedicated craft "studio" in a few weeks or months, so we'll see what the purpose for this will eventually become.  

Just kidding about the silence.  The two boys both just woke up and are immensely crabby.  So I get to leave you with pictures that I intended to write about. 

And so it's been almost a month since I posted.

Or caught up on blogs in any form.

Apologies.

A lot of things have been bloggable.

But I'm still in the stage where I find it difficult to both eat breakfast and shower in the morning before Michael goes to work, because Jubilee hasn't sorted out her nighttime feedings and what time she'll be hungry in the morning yet.  And so I get to choose one or the other.  

No complaints, really.  Because she's adorable and generally an easy baby.

 This weekend, Michael bought me a FANCY sewing machine.
One that does stuff when I just press a button.

Really.  It has cars, trailers, bikes, and all sorts of little stitches that the boys love.


So I plan on getting myself together and making a little sewing studio out of a part of our basement.  Because Michael is actually planning on making a little entrepreneurial studio for himself down there, so we're hoping to share a longer room together.

As far as my 60-day fitness challenge goes....it hasn't been.  I did really well the first two weeks, and then my body told me in more ways than one that I was pushing myself too hard immediately after giving birth.  So I'm choosing to wait a little bit.  I anticipate starting working out in a week or two.  For now, we're just doing the healthy meals, homeopathic remedies, and high water consumption.

We also have humungous plans for house projects for the year.  We like to dream big.  And usually we can manage accomplishing our dreams.

As part of our plans to move to France, Michael met with our missions pastor.  There are some changes in that arena.  Our church would like to support us as missionaries.  This is a new and scary place for me to walk into.  We had a lengthy period where we were trusting God for every penny, and now to put our salary back into His hands is a challenge for me.  Along with that, Michael has been applying for different higher-level positions at his current employer with the idea that we'll at least be here for another year, so he might as well get one more "life experience" out of this employer.

In any case, Michael is moving forward with some of the suggestions that the missions pastor had: one of them being a step into leadership roles and intentional discipleship of people around us.  So we are going to be opening our house to a group of men that Michael will be leading.  In light of our house being used for a group study, we need to make some changes.  For example, we need more seating.  Our living room currently only comfortably seats six or seven people in our furniture.  So we're looking at options and budgeting for a sectional couch.  But it also needs to fit my standards of beauty, because our home needs to be a refreshing and peaceful place to abide in....so we'll see what we come up with.

I have much more to talk about, but very little time, and I need to be brainstorming for a minor kitchen redo, a minor living room makeover, and a craft studio.  And figuring out homeschooling and healthy living.  I do enjoy hearing from you all, whether here or on facebook.