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Starting Off Fresh

Well, the holidays are completely over, Daddy's back to work, my parents are in Florida for the winter, and snow is finally on the ground. It's time to buckle down and get crackin' on life!

It's SO easy to get lazy over the holidays. At least it is for me. It's also easy for me to get my head out of the game completely during the months of January and February. The "game" being life. Notoriously, these first two months of the year are THE hardest months for my mental health. Whether it's the typical lack of sunshine we have here in Michigan, or the post-holiday blues, or the slight mourning over my parents being down where it's warm & sunny (while I'm stuck here in the cold & ice), or just that I get too much into philosophical-mode. Whatever it is...it's NOT going to get me down this year! Oh, "it" has tried already. But I'm putting it in its place right here. Right now.

Here are a couple of my Christmas vacation ah-ha moments:

  • God reminded me that I need to pray daily for my children and my husband. So I pulled out two books I've had on my shelf for years: "Power of a Praying Wife" and "Power of a Praying Parent". My goal is to re-read them both and begin to do DAILY and SPECIFIC prayers for Dave and the kids. What an amazing thing we have in prayer! I want my prayer life to get much more in-depth this year. Can't wait to see what blessings I'll have to share a year from now because of this one choice!

  • Due to slipping on the ice and hurting my knee in early December (the 10th, to be exact), I didn't spend a lot of time on the treadmill during the last three weeks of the month. Well, my weight loss for the month of December sure showed that! Of course, there were several holiday celebrations during that month too...but the effects of exercise became ABUNDANTLY clear. (As if I needed the reminder...well OK, maybe I did.) I only lost two pounds during the month of December. Whereas I lost 8 & 10 pounds each of the two months before that. The difference? Exercise. So...time to get my butt back on the treadmill! I have a goal of losing another 20 pounds before our trip to Florida. If there's any chance of that happening, this last month proved that the treadmill MUST be part of my routine. Good to know that for sure. Now to act on it!

Just a couple of "ah-ha's"...but I think a couple of really big ones. These are definitely two of my main goals for 2011: pray more specifically & exercise regularly. The cool thing is that my time exercising can also be used for praying! Gotta love those "two bird with one stone" scenarios.

So, have you caught the "Made to Crave" excitement? I cannot tell you how geeked I am for the start of the Bible study I'm hosting. In fact, I am so excited just to get all my pre-ordered materials in the mail! I hate waiting. And just knowing that the "Made to Crave" book is in stores now...but I have to wait for my package to arrive?! Oh, I'm going crazy over here!

If you want to know more about "Made to Crave", I encourage you to check out Lysa TerKeurst's website: http://www.madetocrave.org/. I'm telling you, I think EVERY woman with a heart for God needs to read this book! It's not just an overweight issue. It's any food/self-image issue that causes us to get off balance with where God wants us. Doesn't that describe most of your girlfriends to some degree? I think it does mine. I just can't wait to see what starts happening as more and more women are introduced to Lysa's teachings on this topic. God is going to do a very big thing! I just know it. Stay tuned for lots more MTC updates over the next few weeks.

Well, my mind is full of lots of great stuff right now. Time to get back to a few things that are calling my name around the house. More on my New Year revelations another day...

Enjoy your day!

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