New Year, New Beginnings and new Goals

   I might be a little late on this one, but wow it's really 2014! A new year! Do any of you out there have any new year resolutions? I'm always excited for the new beginnings that a new year can bring, but you know what? It doesn't have to be a new year for you to have a new beginning! You can make your new beginning, or start fresh any time of the year, it just takes discipline, diligence, and a whole lot of help from The Lord! I love that as a follower of Christ, we can have a new beginning. When we accept Jesus into our hearts, he wipes the slate clean. (Ephesians 1:7) How cool is that? Not only that, but he is quick to wipe it clean again when we fail or mess up along our journey following him, as long as we repent. God is such a loving, forgiving, merciful God. Aren't you glad?  I know I am. I'm so happy that one of the many benefits of being a child of God is that, I can start over, start fresh, all my sins forgiven, all my mistakes forgotten. While, we should always be walking in his shadow, following Jesus' example and God's commandments, but God knows were not perfect and we make mistakes, big or small, if you repent with the right heart, he is merciful and forgives. Praise The Lord!

   So with a new year, something our family always tries to do and something that I urge your family to do as well, is to sit down together and talk about the previous year. We talk about our favorites, our challenges, our mistakes, etc. We talk about what we want to continue to do and what we want to change in this new year. We talk about our hopes, our dreams, we write down some goals, and then we pray about it together as a family. Its really good to share our thoughts and our dreams together for the new year and it really helps everyone stay on track and we help each other stay accountable. Some things our family has been praying about for a few months is getting rid of our cable. We are big movie and show buffs, so this wasn't an easy decision for us, but we looked at how much time we were wasting watching television when we could be reading a book or practicing an instrument or spending time with God. The big ticket was, when God revealed to us that Television has really became a bad habit for us, its robbing us of our time together, because at the end of a long day when your tired, its easy to just flip the tube on, rather then play a game or read a book together instead. Most importantly, its taking time away, time from God, time from each other, time from just life. After having Alexia, we realized just how fast life goes by, she is growing so quickly, she will be 4 years old in April, time has gone by so fast, I don't want to waste any of it. Now,  I'm not saying Television is bad and we should all get rid of our cable, I'm just saying for us, we had started to spend too much time watching TV and that is not healthy. We plan to keep our Hulu and Netflicks subscriptions, so we will occasionally watch some of our favorite shows, but in moderation. So,it is  official   as of today we no longer have a subscription to cable! In result we are also welcoming an extra 50 dollars a month into our budget, wahoo! I'm excited about this new change, I think it will help us to spend more time with God together as a family and more quality time together as a family. 

Another change we are adapting is the Paleo/Gluten Free Diet. I personally have done tons of research on diets and health and I'm kind of a health guru. We've been wanting to clean up our diets and detoxify our bodies from all the holiday sugar and goodies and I recently have found out I have a gluten intolerance and it has reeked havoc on my digestive system leaving me with all these out of the blue symptoms that sometimes make me so sick I cant get out of bed. My husband has a diary intolerance and recently our daughter has begun to have some food aversions that is making her sick to her tummy and leaving her constipated or giving her diarrhea for days. After all my research I'm convinced that Gluten  ( a protein used to make wheat, rye, and barely) is the culprit, her doctor thinks so too. So for 30 days, for health reasons, we have decided to go on a Gluten free and Paleo adapted Diet. If you've never heard of the Paleo diet before, its like the cave mans diet. No Gluten, Grains, refined sugars, processed food, or diary (except eggs). Your pretty much eating a whole lot of fruits and veggies and some meat. You can learn more about it here http://www.webmd.com/diet/paleo-diet and this girl has a lot of yummy recipes Brittany Angell . This diet is suppose to help heal your digestive system, so that is why we have decided to go on the Paleo diet. I'm kinda excited about it, I've found lots of recipes that have great reviews for foods to substitute your breads, carbs, and goodies, with wholesome food alternatives. I'm excited to get healthy, although we usually always try eat healthy and I try to buy organics as much as possible, but we love us some Pasta, Pizza and Bread around here. I've slowly cut down on our gluten intake over the past year, alternating gluten free pasta and bread, but what I am realizing is that Gluten is in EVERYTHING! Its in ice cream, popsicles, can foods, snack foods and just about all your shelf foods and  processed goodies. It's used as a thickening agent. I don't think that, that much gluten is really good for anyone's digestive system. Yikes.  A lot of people don't realize that the food we eat is what could be making us sick. So, we are eating for our health and that's what the Paleo diet is all about, making you eat the way God intended us to eat. If you think about it, God didn't design our bodies to digest all the processed  foods were eating in our current day, that's why so many Americans today have digestive and stomach problems, our bodies were never made to digest some of the foods we are consuming  on a daily basis and its making us sick! I'm not saying everyone needs to eat Paleo, I'm just saying think about it. It makes since. When God created us, he created us to live and eat in the Garden of Eden, do you think the Garden of Eden had Doritos, pizza, wheat, bread, and ice cream? Probably not, is my guess.  I'm not saying never eat junk food, I think we just need to limit our intake and be a little more picky about what we digest into our bodies. I don't know if this is a diet we will stick with for long term, but we are committed to it 100% for at least 30 days and after 30 days we will then continue to go Gluten Free and reintroduce dairy and processed food in our diets, in moderation. We will then begin to pray about it again. I think we will be doing a whole lot of praying for strength and discipline through our Paleo and gluten free journey, as it will not always be easy. It's not easy giving up the foods you love, but that's where finding a similar healthy alternative comes in handy. I'm sure on an occasion during this diet we will be invited to gatherings and be tempted by foods we aren't allowed to eat on this diet, in those rare occasions I will allow my daughter  and ourselves to have a little soda and birthday cake, or whatever it may be, but in small amounts. It's all about moderation and like I've said, I have found healthy alternatives to those beloved snack foods, that we will be able to eat while on this diet, that way we aren't all feeling deprived and craving sweets  and so my daughter doesn't develop physiological  food issues. Here are a few yummy treat recipes Paleo Strawberry Ice Cream bars and this one Chocolate- avocado mouse, one more frozen-chocolate-covered-banana. Yum!! If your interested in learning more about this diet and the foods you can eat you can follow me on my blog and and I have a few boards on my Pinterest devoted to healthy Living, paleo recipes, gluten Free recipes and healthy snacks and treat alternatives. This diet may cost you more money in the begining, but it is possibile to afford this diet on a budget, and what extra money it may cost, is worth giving something else up, because it is for your health. I much rather give up my cable or bi-weekly biggby trip, or cut my monthly clothing allowence, or where ever I can cut un-needed cost, to be able to afford healthier food, if it means I will have more energy and my health issues will go away leaving me feel better and live longer, and please the Lord.  Well, that is about all I have to say about that for now.

Wow, this post has gotten long, so I will end it here and save some of our other goals, hopes, and dreams for this year for another day and another post. Thanks for reading, kudos to you if you read the entire post! :)

Blessings,
Marcie