Spiritual Goal Update

I originally was thinking I'd read my grandmother's Bible this year and then I'd be able to see her notes and favorite verses.  But that ended up not working so well. Her Bible was so well loved that it is falling apart and since I usually read just before I go to sleep at night in bed, it wasn't working well. I was afraid it would make the Bible worse. So I decided to change my goal.

My new goal is to still read the Bible in a year, but this time I'm going to use a Chronological reading plan.

I downloaded the YouVerson Bible app from Google Play Store (or you can get it from the Apple App Store) and checked out the reading plans available through it.  I like that it marks off chapters as I read them. So if I get tired and stop early some night I can catch up the next.  I was first introduced to this app when I was looking for a Bible app for my daughter that allowed her to download the full text of a kid friendly translation of the Bible. A friend suggest this and that's what we ended up going with.  One drawback if you're installing it on your child's device though is that there is a social networking aspect of it. So to address that I hooked it up to MY email address so I'd be the ones getting the notifications.  If you're an adult, it can be a nice way to connect with friends though.

The Plan that I have picked is called As it Happened. You can read it on their website too.  So far I'm enjoying it.  I haven't looked ahead to see how some of the various books are broken up yet, but I will be curious to see that.

One other nice thing about this app is it adjusts based on when you start reading. I started on the 4th, so that was when I read the first day's reading. But I really wanted to go to the calendar year, so I caught myself up by reading more a few days and I was able to reset the app so that it showed the next day's reading correctly.

I highly recommend checking it out if you are looking for a Bible app!

Meal Plan for Jan 7-13

Sorry, this is a bit late, since it's already Tuesday!

Here is this week's meal plan:

Sunday: Mediterranean Meatballs (made with lean beef)
Monday: Chicken Pot Pie (I used Organic Whole Wheat pie crust instead of the Phyllo dough)
Tuesday: Cheesy Sausage and Spinach Pasta
Wednesday: Lumberjack stew (we'll use beef instead of pork)
Thursday: Meatball sandwiches (my daughter is cooking)
Friday: Laotian Beef and Eggs
Saturday: We're going to an event for dinner

I've been experimenting this week with putting the menu in a Google Calendar so my family can all access and and I'll have the links right there.  So far it's working alright but it means that I need to look at my phone or computer when I'm in the kitchen cleaning up from tonight's dinner and wondering what I need to prep for tomorrow night.  Do you meal plan? How do you keep track of your meals?

Have a great week everyone!

Meal Plan: Jan 1-6

My meal plan for this week isn't exactly healthy. I'll improve on that :)

Sunday	Ribs
Monday	Fondue using this dip minus the peppers
Tuesday	Deep Dish Pizza
Wednesday	Leftover Pork
Thursday	Drunken Noodles
Friday	Sloppy Joes
Saturday	Undecided

Most of the time I will have frozen veggies with the meals. I usually let one of my daughters pick out what we're going to have and go get it from the freezer while I'm cooking.  We tend to choose the ones that you can microwave in the bag.

For lunches, I'll be doing leftovers and I have a few of the healthier frozen burritos.  For breakfasts I will have a protein shake.

New Year, New Goals

It's been a while, but I thought I'd start this year off with a few goals.  Rather than five this time though, I'm going to do four.  I'm eliminating the financial one for now, mostly because one isn't coming to mind at the moment.

So, here are my goals:

Personal Goal

I would like to do scrum master training with the goal of getting a certification.

Family Goal

This year, I want to be deliberate about spending time with my husband.  I'm aiming for a date night each month with just the two of this.  I've aided this by giving him gift cards for Christmas that we can use for dinners.

Fitness Goal

I'm happy to report that I've made progress on my weight loss goal.  If you remember, I started at 224, and my goal was 200.  That was 5 years ago.  In that time I gained even more weight, but now I'm down to 195 (if you count the 10 I've gained since Thanksgiving!).  But, I would like to loose more, so this year I'd like to loose another 20 pounds.  This is probably where you'll see me focus most of my posts.  I'll share some recipes and my meal plans.

Spiritual Goal

My Spiritual Goal for this year will be to read the Bible again, but this time I'm going to pick a different translation.  My Grandmother passed away last year and I may choose one of her Bibles to read.  I'll let you know what I decide.

Prayer Journals

We've reached the end of the year and I had New Year's eve off.  So I decided to wrap it up with a last project with the girls by making prayer journals.

I found this great printable from Mother's Niche and printed it out two copies per page and double sided (so there are four for each piece of paper).  Then, I cut the pages in half and two pieces of card stock to the same size (this is the front and back cover).  Next I punched two holes in each page.  Then, the girls stacked it all together and ran a ribbon through the holes and tied it to bind them together. After that, the girls used pens to decorate the covers.

I didn't do enough pages for the full year, but it's enough to get them started and I've let them know we can do more later if they run out.

My hope is that they'll use these to help them focus more on the content of their prayers rather than saying the same thing over and over.

Advent

Growing up, our church always observed Advent by lighting a candle each Sunday in Advent.  Our current church doesn't do it as a church, but in kid's church they learned about the Advent candles and my youngest mentioned it to us.

So, this year, I decided to do it at home.  Each candle has a different meaning and some churches use 4 and some use 5.  My church growing up was using 5 when I left (but did use 4 at one point).  The meanings of the candles differs depending on which church so I asked my youngest which meanings they were learning and went with those.  Then I looked around and found this pdf which matched up with the meanings she was learning and has Bible passages to go with each one.   While there are only 4 candles mentioned in the pdf, I did use 5, with the fifth candle representing Christ (that seems pretty consistent, if there are 5 candles the 5th represents Christ).  The last candle (the Christ candle) usually gets lit Christmas Eve.

Each Sunday night in Advent, we lit the candle and read the verse(s), starting with the first candle and working to the current one.  We were out of town the last Sunday and for Christmas itself, so those two we lit when we got home.

The girls enjoyed this and I think anything that helps them remember why we celebrate Christmas is a good thing.

OCC - Thinking of others at Christmas

This week was collection week for Operation Christmas Child. So we packed two shoeboxes, one for a girl and one for a boy.  We also bought stuff a few weeks ago for our church to use in the shoeboxes. Then, we spent 4 afternoons this week helping at our church which is a drop off location. So far our church has collected over 200 boxes!

If you haven't packed a shoebox and would like to, there's still a bit of time.  Or start now for next year, we're going to start collecting stuff throughout the year for OCC shoeboxes. Maybe next year we will pack more!  It's a great way to get the kids involved in thinking of others at Christmas!

We also used this time to teach our kids about other cultures and parts of the world.  You can explain things like, if you give them a coloring book, you also need to give some crayons or colored pencils because they probably don't have any and a nightlight probably isn't a good idea. You can also track the shoeboxes that you give so you'll get an email when they're delivered, letting you know where they went.  And last but not least, you can talk about the importance of sharing the word of Jesus with others.