Through the Seasons

I’m not sure what to do with this blog anymore.  My inspiration tank is constantly dry lately.  I’ll get back with you when I have something interesting to say.  Hopefully that won’t be too long. 

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I’m doing a Bible study now on the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7.  Yesterday I studied “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Poor:  reduced to beggary, begging, destitute, lowly, afflicted, helpless, powerless, needy

As I read that definition I thought, “Yuck.  I don’t want to be those things.”  Our human nature (or our culture?) promotes independence and strength and a do-it-yourself attitude. 

I think that’s what keeps me at a distance from God sometimes.  I want to just “get it” then “do it” by myself.  To be close to Him is to admit that I need Him and we’re not really supposed to need anyone.  Not really. 

But I do need Him and I am helpless, destitute, powerless, and needy.  I really try to “be good” on my own and no wonder I fail.  Abiding in Christ is admitting I can’t do it on my own.  It’s not standing on my own two feet but leaning on His strength.  Basically it’s a battle between humility and pride.  And it’s a hard fight and a constant one.

What would change in my life and in my relationship with God if I came before Him several times a day admitting to Him (and myself) that I am poor in spirit? 

Psalm 34:18, “The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”

Psalm 51:17, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”

Isaiah 57:15, “For this is what the high and lofty One says- he who lives forever, whose name is holy:  ‘I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.’”

Isaiah 66:1-2, “This is what the LORD says:  ‘Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool.  Where is the house you will build for me?  Where will my resting place be?  Has not my hand made all these things, and so they came into being?’ declares the LORD.  ‘This is the one I esteem:  he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word.’”

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Well I finally took the plunge into Twitter-ville.  You can check out my latest activities on the sidebar (over there ——>).  Asher and Jonathan are twitter-ing too.  (Check out their blogs.)  You can also go directly to Twitter and follow me:  www.twitter.com/dmccalltz.

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Jonathan has it.  I don’t. 

Asher has started responding to Jonathan’s “look”.  He’ll start climbing up on the couch and Jonathan will look at him and he’ll laugh and stop.  Me?  He laughs and keeps going.  Gah!  How did this happen!?!?

Yesterday he stood up on the couch and I gave him my “look” and told him to get down.  He stared at me.  I stared at him.  He looked at my mouth.  Then my eyes.  Then did it again.  I couldn’t take it!!  I cracked.  I’m weak to such a cute baby.  Good grief.  I smiled.  He smiled…and won.

So I’m determined now to be SERIOUS and STRAIGHT-FACED and I am determined to WIN.  If it kills me.  And it might.

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Yesterday was my first day of the sugar detox.  The goal was to stop eating high fructose corn syrup.  That shouldn’t be that hard of a task.  I decided that along with the sugar detox I’d start eating more healthy.  I really didn’t know where to start so I looked up some stuff online and settled on a somewhat low carb kind of eating plan and adapted those principles to what I have here to eat.  I have been weaning myself off caffeine and decided yesterday was going to be my first day without any.  I’d be fine.

Fine I was not!  Low carb, low sugar, no caffeine, and no high fructose corn syrup all at the same time was a bit much.  I had the worst headache.  I drank about a third of a Coke in the afternoon and had temporary relief but by evening I was miserable.  I drank a whole Coke at that point but just couldn’t shake the headache.  Then I had 2 slices of bread with sugar and cinnamon on top and – voila – no more headache.

Food is way too powerful.

So today I’m having some of a Coke in the morning to hopefully prevent the problems I had yesterday and I’ll be weaning myself off the caffeine from there.  I don’t mind the caffeine as much as the sugar I have associated with those drinks.  It’s all a part of the sugar detox.

Other than the headaches though I felt pretty good yesterday.  I read that sugar is a “bad mood food”.  Hopefully cutting it will make me feel better than ever. 

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The first step to the sugar detox I found on this blog is to throw away or identify everything in the house that contains high fructose corn syrup.  I spent yesterday doing that.  A quick rundown of items:  bread crumbs, beanie weenies, fig newtons, Raisin Bran Crunch cereal, Healthy Nut cereal (bought here), ketchup, mayonaisse, BBQ sauce, and pasta sauce. 

Step 2 is to stop eating things that contain high fructose corn syrup.  That starts Monday and lasts for a week until I add step 3 onto what I’m already doing. 

I added a little step 1, part 2 though.  We’re eating the stuff with high fructose corn syrup that I don’t want to throw away.  They weren’t going to last long anyway.  This is mainly the cereal, beanie weenies, and fig newtons.  I don’t know yet what I’ll do about the ketchup and mayonaisse.  It looks like living without will have to do.  I can make my own pasta sauce and bread crumbs minus the HFCS so that’s not a big deal.

Oh.  And I didn’t mention the M&Ms.  I’m sure they are only pure and healthy so I skipped them entirely.  Ahem.

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I’ve been asked lately about how much our workers make.  We have 3 workers:  night guard, gardener (2 days a week), and house help (5 days a week).  At the current exchange rate and on average they make about 48 cents an hour.  And they’re paid very well.  Working for ex-pats tend to be good paying jobs.

Other work for people here usually involves some specialty or expertise:  carpenters, electricians, plumbers, hairdressers, seamstresses…  If not that, a lot of people run stores and restaurants or sell things on the street.  Many women either walk around the area selling fruit or set up a little stand in front of their homes to sell various things.

According to this site:

There is a total number of 2,100,000 households in Tanzania which have an

average income of US$564. The share of income by the highest 10% of the

population is 30.1% and the share of income by the lowest 20% is 2.8%.

I hope that answers a few questions.  If you have any others about life here, send them on!!

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and it’s not the most exciting topic in the world but here we go…

I found a sugar detox plan on another blog and I’m going to do it.  I know right away where some of my sugar comes from and that’s beverages.  It seems easy to just replace those with water but those same beverages give me my caffeine and that’s a lot harder to give up.  So as I prepare myself to start the sugar detox I am weaning myself from coffee and soda.

I went from 2 caffeine drinks a day to 1.  That was hard.  That’s half the caffeine!  Once I wasn’t feeling so tired I started cutting it down from there and today I am on 1 drink with half the caffeine as usual.  If I do okay on that I’ll cut it again tomorrow, etc until I have a hard time again.  I don’t expect it to be too hard to go from 1/2 to none.  I think the hardest was going from 2 to 1.  And it still happens that I crave a soda in the afternoon but most of that is the sugar problem so I ignore it.

I’m going to start the sugar detox on Monday.  The first week’s project is to identify and/or get rid of everything that contains high fructose corn syrup.  That’ll give me time to continue getting off the caffeine if need be.

I’ve had a couple positive side effects from the one little change I have made and those are:  increased desire for water and increased energy (ironically).  When I’m not pepped up on the artificial stuff I do tend to feel better.  I just have to remember that when I’m tempted to get right back into the habit.

On a side note we just got all those care packages and there are some yummy goodies in there.  I better eat them all up in the next week and a half or so.  Or is that the right way to look at it? 

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“Try it Tuesday” is hosted by Naturally Knocked Up.  I thought it would be fun to participate!  Go there for the other entries.   

We’re having some trouble getting chicken here – again.  Thankfully I got some canned chicken in a care package so I threw this together in the crock-pot:

white chicken breast (mine is canned)

cream of mushroom soup

mushrooms

paprika

garlic salt

lentils (my healthy add-in for almost everything)

We served it over brown rice for a somewhat healthy meal for someone just starting out trying to eat a more healthy diet.  We’ve progressed to this from chicken parmesan. 

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We got SIX care packages yesterday!!!  It was mind boggling to see what all people sent to us!  Most of it is for the ladies’ night at our annual conference.  I won’t go into details in case some of my readers will be there but I’ll just say that I’ve got enough now for a good start on gift bags to go home with each lady.  I’m so excited!  When I asked for help I never dreamed it would turn out this well!  So I just want to say thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!

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