Hi everyone,  I have decieded through much prayer and indepth research that I am moving back to blogger.  I really have some awesome ideas and I just want to share it with everyone.  I am going to keep this blog open for anyone who wants to read it.  But, I am going to start a whole new blog.  I thought about just moving over to blogger and keep going.  That is not the direction I am feeling right now.  This blog will be here if you want to read through it.  I have felt a whole new calling and I am going to obey that calling right now.  If you would like to keep up with my new post, please go here.  God bless all of you and Ihope to see you on the other blog.  Tanya

I am so blessed to be able to click on my computer and surf the net.  Through my surfing I have come upon many sites and I have liked some and not some.  But one of my favorite sites is “Crowned with Silver“.  I love the fact that this site teaches about the Titus 2 women.  I have been blessed by their stories of women who touched them,  recipes for food and cleaning supplies, how to be a better wife and mother and most of all testimonies.  This site touches my heart. Another site that I have spent some time on and I truly love is “No Greater Joy“.  Michael and Debi Pearl are very real Christians with a passion for family, marriage and homeschooling.  Their children have also joined this crusade and it makes me feel so delighted about my family and our future with Christ.  They have many videos, Cd’s and books that you can order, and I highly recommend all of them.  I have been reading some excerpts from Rebekah Pearls diary’s of her mission trip, it is amazing .  I think this will be my next book to read.  The next website is the “KJV Fundamental 500 websites“.  This website has many different sites on it, blogs, websites, colleges etc.  I stumbled upon this last week and I have been having a hay day.  I love the blogs, most of the women’s blogs are Victorian like and love raising their families.  I have been so blessed by the blogs.  Jeff and I also stumbled upon a three year course about the books of the bibles.  We are in prayer about weather we should tackle this or not.  It looks really awesome I might add. The last site that I am going to share with you is “A Christian Home“.   There is so much information on this blog and I have been so blessed by the topics.  I highly recommend this to all ladies who are just looking for information on children, home and being a christian wife.  I hope that you will seek out all of these sites and that you will be blessed as much as I was. 

I would like to make a correction from my last post.  It was not Zinc that I was taking for the grey hair but Folic Acid.  I am also taking Zinc,  but I am taking zinc for my acne and a wart that started on my knee.  The acne is really limited and I do not have as much and the wart is gone.  Other benefits of Zinc are healing of Childhood malnutrition, peptic ulcers, infertility, Wilson’s disease, replenish taste or smell, prevention of common cold and many other.  If you would like to see a better chart of benefits of Zinc go here. 

I just take one vitamin of Zinc a day and there are many foods with Zinc in them.  One of the highest is Oysters.  If you would like to see a chart with certain foods that contain Zinc, go here.  There are so many vitamins that we do not take or get in our daily diet.  I am starting to feel so much better.  I challenge all of you to look into folic acid, Zinc, calcium, vitamin D etc.  It is really important that we get a daily allowance of certain nutrition’s.

My hair started to grey when I was about twenty five. I came from a family where all of my aunts and uncles including my dad had this silvery hair by time they were twenty. I really did not mind it, ever so often I would dye it and that was that. But the grey hair that I have would not take dyes very well and within two weeks my hair was grey again. But it was not until a couple of years ago that my hair was really getting white. I had some health problems and not only was my hair so grey, but I also lost quite a bit of hair.

For Christmas, I asked my husband to get me a book called “The Power of Healing, The Power of God” By Bill Sardi. I started to do some reading about the food that we eat and how it really effects our bodies. I found some information on what to do with grey hair in another book called “The Herbal Home Remedy Book.” You can see in this picture below the dark roots coming in under the grey.

In the book it says people who are lacking Zinc and certain foods can cause grey hair. Of course remember with time we will grey and it is not unusual. It still would not hurt to start a new meal regimen and see if it is from a deficiency. Other foods on the list  would be Omega-3’s like fish, Salmon and halibut, broccoli, spinach, sweet potatoes, squash and strawberries. There are more in the list. raw eggs, legumes, yeast, cauliflower, bananas, carrots and mushrooms.

Here is a picture of my scalp, I know it is not a great pictures, but it does show some of the darker hair that is coming in. I am going to incorporate more of these foods into our diet. It will really help with health also. I am amazed at the difference that food makes.

I would like to share a simple receipe for you. It is so yummy and the family really enjoyed it. It is a matter of cutting up the veggies and then let simmer for a while.

7 peeled and sliced potatoes.
2 handfuls of fresh spinage leaves, cut up
1/2 white onion sliced up into small bits
fresh garlic, to taste.
1 stalk of brocoli, slicesed up
8 baby carrots, sliced
1 Tbsp. Paprika
1 Tbsp. ground Pepper
1tsp. Salt
1 can of evaperated milk

In a large pot place all the chopped vegitables with water. Place on the stove on Med High. Let simmer for a good hour or until the potatoes are soft. At time turn down the heat and add the evaperated milk. Let simmer for a half an hour and then serve. The family really liked this soup and if gives alot more vegitables that they may not be getting through the day.  I served it with yogurt biscuts.

I have received an e-mail from Heather.  Here is an up date about the new regulations and I hope that it will help.  Go here for more information. If you need more information call the 1-800 number from the previous post.

I am not sure if any of you have heard,  but our thrift stores may or may not be jeopardized by a new law that was just passed.  The CPSC “Consumer Product Safety Commission” has just passed a law that consignment stores, thrift store or even garage sales may not be able to sell children’s 12 and other clothes or toys. If you want to find out more information here is the CPSC website with the information. Or if you would like to call someone here is the number 1-800-638-2772. I called them this morning and talked to one of the workers there. She said that the Pregnancy Center will not be effected by this new law, because I am not selling the clothes and if I had more information to send an email with a return email address for more information. This does scare me, I love the thrift shop and I have heard from some other people that some of the shops in other states are considering closing. The whole thing is, that the shops have to have all the clothes lead tested and this may run into some deep money.  Please pray, look into this and if you find out more information let me know. I will keep updating as I find out more. Thank Tanya

I have really felt the Lord pulling me to teach Luke and Melanie on Marriage, sexual Purity, budgeting, etc.  A couple of weeks ago I showed the first DVD of Love and Respect to the kids.  It was really good and it did help Luke realize that his wife and even I, need to respect him in order for him to love back.  But it was not until yesterday that I changed  my mind.  Jeff, the kids and I sat down and watched the DVD  “Marriage God’s Way” by Michael Pearl, for the husband.  I was so impressed by how Mr. Pearl directed the marriage straight from the scriptures and he gave a run down of the roles of a man.  It was so amazing and after we were done, Jeff said he only wanted me to teach from this series.  I tell you what, it is powerful, and I realized that I have been a bossy women to Jeff.  Michael Pearl makes it clear that a marriage is 100/100.  That we should give 100% of ourselves to our spouse all the time.  And if we are giving a 100% and our spouse is not, that is okay, because as we give to our spouse, he will see it and he will change his heart. 

The one thing that he said that made me relax alot about training the kids to be good spouses is this.  When you are walking down the isle remember,  you have been a son, friend, brother, cousin and a nephew.  You have never been a husband.  When you say your I do’s, you will start to be a husband and it will take time to realize how to take care of someone else.  This made me realize that Luke will be equipped, but he really will not use this information until he is a husband.  I still need to show  him the path and then give it to God and let Him do the rest for Luke.  Also, our kids will see our marriage and therefore this also guides them.  Lead by example.

So here is why I feel that I have been a bossy wife.  At the end of the DVD,  Michael Pearl takes questions from some of the women in the congresgation.  A couple of the questions was, “the husband does not lead in devotions.”  Michael Pearl was like “so what.”  Michael stated that he did not lead the family in devotion and look how his kids turned out.  He was trying to say that a family lives by example and the children see you reading, and you will even read to the kids.  But these little issues are just that little.  My hounding on Jeff is not going to get him to do devotions with the kids,  and all it will cause is strife between the two of us.  I have decided to let it go and make sure the kids are in the word. 

This is a two dvd set.  There is one for the wives and one for the husbands.  He is verydiscriptive about  different  roles between a husband and wife.  Mr. Pearl also goes into a great detail on certain word from the scriptures.  It is an awesome dvd set and if you have read Debi Pearl’s book “How to be your husbands helpmeet.”  This ties it all together.  I hope that you will look into it. If you would like to order this dvd or see what other product they carry, go here.

I have been in the books of Samuel lately.  I was reading the first five chapters of 2 Samuel this morning.  It amazed me about these people who came to David and stated that they killed Saul or other people in the great battle at the end of 1 Samuel.  David did not reward these people by any means, he slew them.  David was not impressed on who they took out or killed.  Especially not the person who killed or stated that he kill Saul, the man that killed Saul than killed himself, so this guy was a liar to begin with.  David had plenty of chances to kill Saul, he never took them because Saul was anointed by God.  If fact, when the person came to David and told him that he killed Saul, David asked how he could kill the anointed?   David did not care of your statues or your great victory.  In fact, David did not care about anything except what God cared about.  I believe this is why David was known as a man after God own heart. 

I read about David and I so pray for the focus on God like he had.  I find that sometimes I am so focused on what other people think of me or say about me, that I totally loose focus of the divine one.  David knew that God was the only person he could cry out to.  I am finding that this is true also.  No matter what I am going through, it is hard to tell someone else what I am feeling because frankly, the person I am talking to  was not there.  No one will honestly understand the feelings that I am feeling, the loneliness that I am going through, the guilt that I am struggling with.  No one except God, He knows my heart and He knows what I am going through.  I believe this is why David went to God,  He knew that God was the only person to know what David was feeling.  Feelings are deep and they are so captivating sometimes, sometimes I feel crazy just because of my feelings.  I read Psalms and I say, Yes, I feel that way right now. 

Oh, I am not going through anything right now.  I just feel so connected to David and the more that I read about him, the more I love him and feel his life.  I hope that when I do go to heaven, I will be able to meet David first hand.  He was a deep individual who love God with all of his heart.  I know that my life is different than David’s life and God has me on a marvelous journey, but sometimes my heart wanders to the characters of the bible and I just want to be them for a minute.  Maybe I am one of them  for a minute,but  my life is what God and I make it.

Melanie and I have been reading this book together called “Maidens of Virtue.”  The first chapter talks about how we refer to our daughters in this day in age.  For example,  the pet names we give our daughter and sons.  For many years I called my little princess, “Sexy Mama”  or “Chicky.”  I realized after reading this passage in the book, that I am setting up behaviors by the pet names I give them.  I looked to Melanie and said,  “From now on I am going to call you princess,  daughter of God or Little Maiden.” 

This went further in my mind on how I viewed God by the names I was called.  See, there was names given to me as a teenager by ones that I loved, I do not believe that they were given to me for abuse as much as a fear tack tic.   I believe the names caused me to have an attitude towards God.  “Does He perceive me as that name” or  “does He think of me that way?”   “Maybe they are right, I am a tramp or slut?”   I believe that this is very harmful to our little princesses and our princes.  I am seeing that the way I speak to my children plays a  role in how they view the opposite sex .  If my daughter does not have a high regard for who she is,  she will find it in the opposite sex.  Also, if we do not treat our daughter with high regard in front of our son, he will treat women with a disrespect.  We have to up lift our children and build their self esteem within them.  Showing them the direction that God has for them and the love that He wants them to know.  It starts with our hearts and comes out our mouths.  I do not believe that all parents intentionally try to hurt their children by what they say or the pet names.  But we need to be aware of the harm that we may cause. 

Also,  I started to think about what the words mean.  Sexy Mama for instance,  it  refers  to my daughter as being some kind of sex magnet in a way.  It also makes her look at her body in a way that may not be pleasing to the Lord.  And I have realized that certain words should not even be in my vocabulary when it comes to the kids.  Like “fat”, you can cut the fat off the meat, but do not say it to the kids?  Or “You have the Kenney but”,  okay what did that do to my daughter,  and is it a good thing?  See how the word game gets started.  I highly recommend two books,  I am sure that there are more out there that are good,  but these are the two that I have or currently are reading.  The first is of course “Maidens of Virtue” and the second is “Who calls me beautiful?”  Both are awesome books and if your daughter are babies,  they are awesome to just read and get yourself started.  It is never early or late to start a new tradition.  Watch those words and have a great weekend.  Love from one princess to another.

I have to say that I am really looking forward to the New Year 2009.  I can not believe that it is here already.  2008 was a really challenging year for our family.  In March I was going through some health challenges.  God finally lead me to a doctor that found out what was wrong and I was able to get healthy.  Jeff also had some health challenges and I believe that God has shown us direction on that.  Jeff will be doing much better really soon.  Jeff’s sister and family moved back to Red Oak from Iowa City and they are now settled in a new home and jobs.  But the most memorable part of 2008 was my relationship with God.  I had some experiences this year with Him that I never thought that I would have with anyone.  He showed me love beyond love, healing that I never thought was possible and closeness with Him that I only dreamed of.  I am so glad that I was humble and open to Him to let Him be able to work in my life.  I am looking forward to more.  I will never be totally there with God, I will be growing from now until I die.  But I guarantee that I will be the daughter that He needs me to be, will I fall, sure I will.  But in the long run, I will learn and grow and that is what I have done in 2008.  So, bring on 2009,  I will be a year older and I will be celebrating twenty years from my high school graduation,  but I will be stronger and wiser in the Lord.  God bless all of you and I love you all.