Nice Visits

I had a lovely time the past 2 weeks catching up with my friend Ashley, who was visiting from Brazil. Her 11 year old daughter and my boys have been friends their whole life, while her and I have been friends for about the same time. We had plenty of time to sit around and chat, thanks to her mother who watched the baby,(actually a toddler) and let us pop over to her house when we were at work. Nate's shop and Ashley's mom are right next to each other, so when I got tired of working, I'd go visiting.

This weekend, I packed up the boys and headed to Tonya's to see my newest niece. She is a tiny, fat little piggy baby, whom I totally enjoyed holding, but was happy to turn her back over to her mommy. We have not been to Alabama in a year and a half, so a visit was long overdue. We stayed 3 nights and that was the perfect amount for the younger children. My uncle used to say "fish and company go bad after 3 days", so I always keep that in mind, plus having 9 children 11 and younger under one roof for too long can get crazy. I could have talked to Tonya for 3 more days, because we never seem to run out of interesting things to discuss, but work and hubby were home so our visit had to end. The boys and I really miss having them close by, but I am glad that for the past couple of years they have been fairly close for frequent visits.

When we pulled into Tonya's neighborhood there was a young woman or teenager walking around in her driveway with her cheeks hanging out of her bathing suit. Luke caught sight of her and said, "ugh, we are really in the south now."

Living yeast free

I have finally bit the bullet and gone full bore on a yeast free diet. For years and years I have been plagued with all kinds of yeast problems, and have tried tons of cleanses and detoxes, but they have been to no avail because my eating habits sabotaged the effort. So almost 3 weeks ago I undertook the biggest challenge of my life (sorta) and started the diet. I choose the strictest diet that I could find, since I only want to do this once in my life, because it is so restrictive. I can only eat meat, eggs and vegetables, minus carrots and corn. The only condiments I can have is olive oil and butter, the only dairy I can have is sour cream. The only snack/treat I can eat is popcorn, apparently popcorn doesn't turn to sugar in my system. You wouldn't believe how much sugar is in everything from frozen broccoli to canned tomatoes and salsa.

This last week has been pretty good, but the first 2 weeks were torture, and I am dead serious about that. I was a miss grumpy pants for sure, and my body went into withdraw. Now, I have the occasional sugar lust, but for the most part I'm feeling good. Lots of my symptoms went away, and my weight is exactly where I want it. I have another couple of weeks of strictness, but then I will be adding things like berries(which are low sugar) back into my diet. I will probably add salad dressing and red potatoes back in at the end of the month because we have to travel to CO for court again, and it is so difficult to travel with this kind of diet, because of the marinades that are on so many meats.

This has been a dying to my flesh process, and that sums up what the Lord has been doing to me these past 12 months. In the book I write someday about my life, this chapter will be called, The Year of Death. So many comforts and securities have been striped, and my black heart laid bare. I am finding some level of peace though in this process and I am starting to appreciate the refining process so much more than I ever had.

It is off to work I go

This summer has been like no other, actually this whole year has been like no other. We are consumed with business work and legal work. Thankfully this week should mark the end of our legal work for a good while, and it should never get to the magnitude that it has been these last couple of weeks. I have had my face buried in the computer files for 6-8 hours a day gathering files. This has been a tedious, maddening process, especially since some of the stuff the defense requested was utterly pointless. I now understand why lawyers make so much money, they have to spend countless hours pouring over thousands of documents that are mostly irrelevant. I promise you that over 90% of what I have to gather will not be used, and has little merit. Oh well!

We have received a wonderful blessing. Our attorney has decided to take our case on a contingency. That means that we don't have to pay anything but expenses from now until this is all over. He is doing this because he believes that our case is really strong, and he does not want to fight this battle with one hand tied behind his back because of finances, so now things are really heating up.

No news on Dania, except that she weighs 45lbs and is 49inches. Amanda is off to her dad's this week, and I turn 39 on Tuesday.