health and fitness

dear emily,

a couple of weeks ago, i attempted to share my fitness regime and ended
up talking about cheesecake instead.  this post, however is as serious
as a heart attack.

one month ago, i made a sober self, size, and well being assessment.  i
was still heartbroken at my last child hopping out of the nest all the way
to brazil and tending to my heart with a huge scoop of vanilla haagen
dazs and chocolate syrup every night.

as i stepped away from my calorie laden addiction, i made a firm commit-
ment to myself:

• no more ice cream fiestas after dinner
• as many fruits and vegetables as i can stand
• low carb for dinner
• drastically smaller portions but every 3-4 hours during the day
• lots of exercise, weight training, and water 

at first, it was very uncomfortable.  i made myself stop eating even when

i still wanted "more, please."  but, amazingly, just one month later i am

enjoying satisfying and nutritious meals but am no longer able to eat 

large portions.  my stomach now tells me, "no more, please." 

i am also adjusting to my new life with hans, which includes bike rides,

long walks, travel, and very soon a trip to brazil to see our sweet daughter!  

and yes, my jeans fit quite comfortably again.  no way, i'm telling  the size!

love,

lea

"on this mountain the Lord will prepare a feast of rich food for all

people, a banquet of aged wine- the best of meats and the finest

of wines."  isaiah 25:6

how to cook without a cookbook

dear emily,

one of the trickiest parts in raising five children was the 

cooking.  breakfast alone required a giant skillet, a dozen eggs, 
an entire package of bacon, 16 ounces of cheese,  one loaf of 
homemade whole wheat bread, a carton of orange juice, seven 
knives, forks, spoons, plates and glasses.

it was tempting to say, "and a partridge in a pear tree."

dinner could be daunting, and i resorted to a great deal more

'assembling' than fine cooking.  to make matters worse, i didn't 

seem to be able to follow a recipe.

if the book said, "sautee the onion for 15 minutes until sweet

and tender, i would think, "an onion can't really be all that

necessary."  

when my friends would say, " don't you just love julia child's

cookbook?", i would stare blankly at them and wonder, "who in 

the world is julia child?" 

forget about that "joy of cooking book."  "for the white cream 

sauce, go to page 27.  add the sauce to the roasted pheasant on 

page 1,378."  it gave me carpal tunnel to complete any recipe.


one evening while hans let our little sinners run all over the local

mall, i spied the holy grail of cookbooks.  "how to cook without

a book."  the author preached about a foolproof gospel of saved

ingredients to usher any soup or pasta sauce into heaven.  it was 
the answer to all my prayers.

here's the basic formula:


sautee one onion.  season, please.
add one pound of meat
one pound of vegetables
one pound of a starch (potatoes, rice, pasta, etc.)
one quart of stock (chicken goes best with chicken, etc.)
add any spices or seasoning in your cupboard.


simmer as long as you want but less than one week.  :)
this wonderful book has easy formulas for many dishes,
but the soup has saved my life.


love,
lea


"oh taste and see that the Lord is good!"  psalm 34:8


ps.  what in the world is going on with the font and
how do you underline, again?

the art of simplification

last night as i went through my mental prayer list i thought, "if i can't
remember all the people who have requested prayer, then i have let too
many into my life."

google image

i don't even know if i agree with that, but in my exhaustion it made
sense.  if someone is not important enough to recall them in my
prayers, then i shouldn't have let them think i would pray.

the tricky part is that i now have as many friends here, that i have
never seen, as i do in my day to day life.  last night as we were putting
groceries away, i heard myself say, "my friend joan posted the most
beautiful photo of a budding flower that looked just like a candle to
celebrate her anniversary."

hans didn't say it, but i know he thought, "does she have a friend
named joan?"

"yes!  she lives in australia, and i visit her almost every day."

i was starting to sound like our daughter hailey, who when three
had imaginary friends named sarah and ashley.   ashley smoked
cigarettes!  :)

my point is that i am going to be more purposeful in my visiting
and praying . . . and promise of praying.  then i won't feel guilty
at night for perhaps forgetting someone.  i will just be convicted
of all the other terrible things i do!

love,
lea

"let my prayer be set forth as incense before You, the lifting up
of my hands as the evening sacrifice."  psalm 141:2

a fake and a fraud

i'm not a party girl, more of a wallflower, but we have hosted three
parties in as many weeks.  i feel like roadkill.

before each event, i have great intentions to clean my house from
top to bottom and bring order to my chaos but always end up
stuffing papers, shoes, and pillows into my office.

at the last party, and i mean the very LAST party,  my friend walked
into my dump office and came back to the table with a challenge to
my sainthood.  :)

"you are a fake and a fraud."

"what?"  i thought she was referring to the fake four carat canary
diamond on my happy finger.

"i read the post about your beautifully ordered office, and what i just
saw is a mess!  you are misleading your gentle readers."

whew!  the ring is safe for another day.   the office is . . . well,
just an office.

love,
lea

"but everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way."
I corinthians 14:40

50 push ups for me!

my friend margaret, at single and sane, wrote the most inspirational essay
on the beauty of not being too thin.  it was music to my chubby ears, as
it is apparently a tiny bit healthier to be a tiny bit heavier.  woo hoo!

this coincided with my first two weeks of a diet and almost sabotaged it,
but i held firm to my new standard.  no cheesecake after midnight.

i also walk everywhere i go . . . in the house and am really into pushups,
especially the orange cream ones or the victoria secret ones.

honest to goodness, i was going to write a serious treatise on my lifestyle
changes, but it all of sudden started to seem so funny.  today, after trying
on too many pants that were still TOO tight, i spotted a tiny sign at the
bottom of the dressing room mirror.

"we want you to be beautiful."

well, they should have dimmed the lights.

love,
lea

"all is vanity."  ecclesiastes 1:2

five times the grace!

dear emily,

last night i lay in bed praying for you and the eminent birth of your sweet #5.
i even awoke from a dream praying for you.  see how much the Lord loves
you?

i have a special affinity for you now that we both will have five children.  it
is the number of grace and redemption in the bible.  here are a few illustrations
of the number five.

historians maintain that the israelites marched out of egypt in ranks of five.

david picked up five smooth stones.  I samuel 17:40

the Lord told abram to sacrifice five animals (heifer, goat, ram, dove, and
pigeon.)  genesis 15:9

when God changed abram's name to abraham, He added the fifth letter.

"five of you will chase 100 . . ." leviticus 26:8

i know my kids have grown fond of pretending you might name this
precious one "nickel." :)  nickel, obviously, stands for five shiny pennies
and is a silvery-white metal.

"and the words of the Lord are flawless, like silver refined in a furnace
of clay, purified seven times."  psalm 12:6

no pressure.  :)

love,
lea

the resurrection of jackie sweeter

we Christians do not all have the exact same beliefs.  even the apostle
paul acknowledged that there are so many differences in the church,
we should just agree on Christ's resurrection and not worry about the
rest.

believe it or not, i have a resurrection story that involves our youngest
daughter's hamster, the venerable jackie sweeter.  she  loved that little
guy to death, literally.  he was stone cold dead, on his back, feet in the
air.

until he hopped back up and got back inside that maniacal wheel.
you might call it his wheel of fortune.

unfortunately, a few days later he died again, permanently, and seven
year old hailey was broken hearted.  she wrote a lovely funeral program
including a moving tribute to both his lives and deaths.

as you might imagine, she was very reluctant to let us bury him.

love,
lea

"listen, i tell you a mystery:  we will not all sleep, but we will all be
changed."  1 corinthians 15:51