wishful thinking

Not that you have to be rich to have flowers in your house. But these lovely ranunculus cost $17 dollars and I imagine if I had my place freshly stocked with them weekly, that would get pretty costly after a while. I was just staring at them and wishing that one day I will make enough money to have fresh flowers in my house, and  even in my bathroom too (!!!!) weekly. Until then, I plan on squeezing every ounce of enjoyment out of these babies!

Hannah's Spring Look

Hannah's Spring Look by hannahwiitala featuring platform shoes

Food Rant.

I'm beginning to come to the realization that I cannot just eat whatever I want anymore without gaining a pound.  And a sad, sad realization it is indeed. I am the third week into a twelve week diet that I am doing called Body For Life. In this diet you do not consume, sugar, and you can only have complex carbs, fat free dairy, and lean meats.. and of course as much fruits and vegetables as you want. I have done it once before and I lost 13 lbs. This time I would like to lose more.
I have been feeling really good though. I just came to the realization that whatever I eat today is going to mean nothing to me tomorrow. So do I want to eat whatever i crave and be left with the feelings of guilt and general grossness, or do I want to eat healthy even though it feels like suffering in the moment, I end up feeling proud of myself and good of course because I am consuming nutrients that my body can actually use!
I just bought this book, In Defense Of Food: An Eaters Manifesto. It came in on Saturday and I finished reading it on Tuesday. I don't usually have the attention span to read books that quickly unless I am really into whatever they are about. It was sooo good! It talked about how back in the day people didn't have to read on a package to know what they should eat or not. They bought bread, eggs, cheese, fruits, vegetables, etc. No bells and whistles, just plain old FOOD!  And by bread I mean flour, yeast, salt, water.  Not the wonder bread you find now with a novel of ingredients on the label. What happened was, when they first discovered ways to refine starches so that they were as snow white and pleasurable to eat as possible, what they were actually doing was stripping away all the nutrition from the grain. They didn't realize this until the people they were feeding it to actually started to get sick from various deficiencies. So they starting adding the things to the bread and whatnot that they found to be missing, so that by their standards they were actually giving you something that was as, if not more, nutritious than the original whole food in the first place. The scientists that study food can only do something I think it is called Isolated Science, where  they isolate individual nutrients in food and study them.. rather than for instance the carrot, as a whole. But of course, they can't do that because the carrot as a whole is far more complex than our science. You're probably thinking, how is it that we can figure out how to grow a baby in a test tube, land someone on the moon, etc, and we can't figure out what all is in a carrot?? Well, it's just the truth. Maybe if the food industry wasn't spending so much of their efforts on finding reasons why fruit loops are good for you and how to make virtually everything we eat out of corn or soy, then maybe they could be conducting some more useful studies. Anyways, what the book was saying is that you probably shouldn't be eating things that aren't REAL food! If laws that were in place back in the day still stood you wouldn't even be able to call Wonder Bread "bread"!
Even after I am done with this diet I am going to try and make some serious changes in my diet. Not only for my health, but also because every time you buy something at the store you are casting a vote of what you want the food industry to keep supplying you with. I am going to try to set a few goals for myself and see how I do. Then as I conquer those ones, I can add more to my list. So here are a few:

1. No margarine! EVER!
2. Try when I can to choose complex, non refined starches.
3. Soda no more than once per week.

Wish me luck!

7 Ways to Wear a Scarf

Ramblings...

At 26, I am still figuring out my faith and what it means to me. Sometimes I am embarrassed to call myself a christian. I don't want to be associated with the majority of people who call themselves Christians in the world today. Yes, I believe in God, yes I believe in Jesus and that he died for my sins. I am not embarrassed of that. But I think Christians have become well known for their extreme judgementalism and close-minded ignorance. I don't want to be known for George Bush's spilling of thousands of innocent people's blood, Joel Osteen lining his pockets in the name of God, the mega churches with starbucks, Terry Jones threatening to burn the Koran on 9/11, the person holding that sign that says "God hates fags" or  "Abortion is homicide".

I do not believe that God put me here on this earth to be the decider of whether or not someone else is living their life the way they should be or not. God created all sin equal and maybe if I had NO sin in my own life, then I could have a say in someone else's life. Until then, I consider myself just as guilty as the person I may be judging and I'm going to keep pulling the forests of logs out of my own eyes. Don't get me wrong, I think if you really care about your friends and you see them harming themselves, you should take action to help them, but not through words of condemnation. Through ACTIONS of LOVE and by EXAMPLE!

 I just get so sad to think that we lose faith in other's so easily, that we are so quick to make a judgement about them for their mistakes. No matter what someone does, we do not know what goes through their head in the still of the night when it's just them and their thoughts. That, only God knows. I think we may be surprised when we get to heaven and see who is there with us. I know the bible says that the only way to heaven is through Christ, but I struggle to believe that someone in Bangladesh, Tibet, Syria, Fiji, etc. that devotes their entire life to the creator, and doing good, but didn't call him by the name Jesus wouldn't be accepted with open arms at the gates of heaven. I don't know much, but I really feel that the God I know would accept them.

I DO know that God is so much bigger than us and our labels and compartments. And that gives me so much hope. That's all for tonight...

Keeper Of The Birds

I remember being six or seven and lying on the floor of the sun room of our house on Ball Street letting the beams of sunlight warm my face. I would lay silently, waiting patiently for the moment! The moment when I would hear the thud against the large bay windows my Dad had put in a few years earlier. I remember running outside as fast as my bare feet would take me to find the small lifeless body of a bird laying there. Finding that it was beyond saving, I was ready to perform my duty and give it the burial that I felt, in my seven year old head, it deserved. I would dig deep in the loose soil of our garden with my hands and lay it's fragile little body in the grave, then cover it up leaving one wing protruding from the earth, almost as a salute. I would stand and stare at it for a while wondering what it's little bird life was like. Did it have a bird mommy or daddy or a bird husband that was waiting anxiously for it's return home? I would conclude the burial with the sprinkling of flower petals around the wing and then return to my spot in the sun and wait for the next unknowing victim.