Gardening: infusion therapy for stress, anxiety, and disease
Posted: June 5, 2012 Filed under: gardening, Health, Hobbies, Working Mom | Tags: canning, fruit, garden, health, square foot, vegetables 1 Comment »Infusion therapy: the delivery of drugs directly into the bloodstream via a vein, usually located in the arm or hand
My infusion therapy tools are my HOE and my SHOVEL!
This has been the style of my garden for the past several years. It has been a great source of pride and produce for our family!
Though the kids hated to weed it, they couldn’t wait to plant it and eat the benefits! So weed, they did…
This year, we are trying something different. It feels so strange, but we are trying square foot gardening! Huge change! It takes up SO much less space than we ever used before, and it seems SO crazy. My husband is the least in favor of this new set up. Even though we have owned Mel’s book for YEARS and he has read it twice, he is still a quite skeptical about this whole thing! Honestly, I’m a little shaky, too.
This is a picture of the new set up:
But we are hoping for the best and having fun with the experimentation. I just hope the plants cooperate, because I have some BIG plans for canning and freezing and EATING our veggies! And yes, we have the same number of tomatoes this year as last year… and MORE than the previous year’s numbers of cukes AND peppers! I swear!
Well, I certainly can’t talk about weight loss, since I battle (okay, IGNORE) my weight problem daily. However, I can talk about eating yummy foods that are good for you and finding a hobby that is, too!
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Did you know that increasing your consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables by 3 (just adding 3 to the fruit and veggies you already eat) can decrease your chance of stroke by 22 % ?
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Did you know that just being in a garden is so restorative that medical personal are experimenting with therapy gardens in nursing homes for patient’s with Alzheimer’s?
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Did you know that “leisure in green environments provides feelings of relaxation, autonomy and competition, and makes people open for reflection”? (source)
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Working together with your family (or friends) on a gardening project helps you to become closer group and helps people to communicate better (source, p48).
Happy Ho-ing!! ;-)
The Lord will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.
Isaiah 58:11
Ozzy Ozbourne versus Skillet
Posted: January 27, 2012 Filed under: Behavior, Family, Hobbies, Working Mom Leave a comment »
Recently I attended a Christian concert with my kids.
In the audience were thousands of students. The concert was fine. Though I can just as happily listen to a CD often enough.
But the showmanship at this concert was incredible. There were several bands at the event, and some were good, while others were either better mixed or just much more talented. But in all cases the showmanship was awesome.
So awesome, in fact, that I began to think about, and worry about, the roles those musicians are playing. Because they ARE roles, they ARE performing. They aren’t always feeling like praising God and though they probably WANT to praise him always, they probably don’t always want to do it in front of a bajillion people.
And what does this do to your psyche? Luke 16:15 reminds us that what the world values, Christians should not. Yet everything I saw on that stage (and most of what I enjoyed) were clearly things that brought questions to my mind about what sort of Christian I was to be watching this concert…
Certainly I love (most of) the music. I listen to it in my home, and the artists who create that music wouldn’t have the money to make it if they weren’t also paid to perform that music in order to sell more music (capice?).
But when fire is spewing out of the stage floor, musicians prance around wearing masks, and the performers are highlighted and showcased for who they are individually, it takes away from God and the supposed reason we all were gathering together – to praise God, together.
So I’m just no longer sure if there really is a difference between Ozzy and Skillet. It didn’t look like it to me…
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I welcome your thoughts, even if you disagree.
Luke 16:15 (NIV) 15 He said to them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others, but God knows your hearts. What people value highly is detestable in God’s sight.
Overflowing cucumbers
Posted: November 19, 2011 Filed under: Family, Hobbies | Tags: children, gardening, parenting 4 Comments »I set my stopwatch for 5 minutes, write ANYTHING, then share it on:
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The word is: GROW
Tomatoes, bursting from the vine. Cherry red, Cosmic Orange, popping out of the lush greenery like Christmas ornaments. They grow.
Cucumbers, three plants in the ground, HUNDREDS of fruit on the vine. Remind me not to plant three cucumber plants next year. Three is too many for my entire neighborhood. Cucumbers grow!
Watermelon vines snake around the rosemary and meander through the peppers. At summer’s end, only one fruit is gifted to us. Watermelons don’t seem to grow.
But children. They do. And though I vowed I wasn’t going to be melancholy in this post, and write about anything wistfully, including my children, here they come again. And boy do they grow. Too fast.
19 Flavors of Oreo Cookies?
Posted: November 10, 2011 Filed under: Family, Hobbies, Joy | Tags: blogging, cookies, recipe 4 Comments »So I was reading an e-book by Seth Godin entitled, “Who’s There” …Okay, well, I started reading it, but because I was at work and I happened to open that .pdf in error, I read the first few lines and quickly logged off. But WOW what data was in those lines!
80,000 new blogs every day. 19,000,000 different beverages at Starbucks. 19 flavors of Oreos. 172 professional sports teams in the United States On September 28, 2004, a search on “podcast” in Google turned up 24 matches. AS I write this, the number is 17,000,000. (Again, this data is from Seth Godin’s book, which can be found on http://www.sethgodin.com, and which I am NOT endorsing because I haven’t read it yet!!!!!)
But can you believe that? 19 Flavors of Oreos??
LOL okay, that wasn’t the only shocker. 80,000 new blogs a DAY is HUGE.
I don’t know how accurate that data is, but all I can say is that I am THANKFUL for all those people choosing to share their thoughts on the web. I mean it!
Sure, there are people posting blogs that scare the freak out of me, but there are so many uplifting and wonderful people out there sharing their lives. From crafts and recipe blogs to review blogs and more. And I feel so fortunate to have discovered that there is an entire online community of Christians bloggers! I had no idea…
So today, after a great day at work – but a busy day in which I swear I did not pray or think of God or his gifts once since 6:30am – I was able to come home, take a rest, and get my head in the right spot for my evening plans by reading some blog posts by Christian women. What a joy! Now I was ready to start my evening: family dinner, a bath for one of our furry family members, bible study, and a re-run of Psych.
*Just a note: If you click on the Oreo photo above, which features my Peanut’s hands, you will head over to my craft blog and will find a delicious recipe.
Art Journaling
Posted: October 15, 2011 Filed under: Art Journal, Hobbies, Prayer Journals, Video 3 Comments »
Art Journaling is a way to keep a prayer journal that you may not have thought of. I like to look at the act of art journaling as a way to help me focus on God. God says to pray unceasingly, and there are some activities that lend themselves to this. One, for me, is lawn mowing! Another is art journaling. In addition to the colorful aspects of art journaling, it invites you to write down thoughts, prayers, and hopes and dreams within the pages of the journal. Below I link to an excellent lesson on creating an Art Journal, and though she doesn’t discuss its use as a faith journal, I believe you can clearly see how you can incorporate your faith into one that you make yourself…
Give it a try and let me know if you enjoyed it. If you currently create art journals, feel free to comment and put a link up to photos of your own art journals. I’ll be doing that over the weekend. I’ll also be sharing some on http://www.flickr.com/photos/evidentfaith/
Hello world!
Posted: October 5, 2011 Filed under: Family, Hobbies, Working Mom 3 Comments »Welcome to My Evident Faith. This is my place to share my faith, my life, activities, thoughts, musings, and my attempts to apply my faith to daily life.
I’ll introduce you to my family… These are the kids:
Oh I wonder if they will be unhappy that I have put this up! I’ll have to make sure they know its here 
And as for myself and my husband, any recent pictures I have are so silly, and they either have us doing something silly or stupid, so I’m going to ask one of the kids to take a normal photo of us (without the Groucho Marx glasses) before I put it up.
My name is Lori and I am a Christian. I will share more about my faith as time goes by, but first let me tell you about our lives.
I was a stay-at-home mom and my husband worked two jobs so that I could do that. As the children grew, I did work to bring in outside monies, and for a few years I did childcare in my home. When our youngest was born, I worked a few hours a week as a preschool instructor for a community center, and I brought her with me. She loved playing with the kids! When she entered school I began to work temp jobs during mid-day so that I was home before and after school.
At one point in my journey I returned to college, not having finished when I attended right out of high school. Ultimately I graduated in 2009 with my BS in Art History with a minor in computing.
And now it is many years later, and I have taken my first full-time permanent job since before I had kids. I love it! I work as support staff for a public educational entity, and because education is so important to me, and has always been important to me, I am happy working in such a setting. There, the people are all committed to teaching our children to the best of their abilities and resources and making them be their best.
I have many passions, include promoting education, quilting & crafting, and reading and outdoor sports. I also love painting & sculpting and writing.
Now you have a quick summary of who I am, and I hope to share more of my story as time goes on, and learn more about others while I’m playing here on this website!
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On June 8, 2012 I revisited this post (my first) and shared it at the blog linked below. Please come over and join in!
