• Advanced Training Institute - ATI / IBLP - Homeschooling - Potpourri

    Unpacking The ATI / IBLP Baggage

    What I’m writing about these days isn’t sensational and isn’t unique to me.  It’s not isolated and it’s not rare — at least not in homeschool and/or conservative Christian circles.  It’s probably going on all over the place to one degree or another.  Most everyone who’s been caught up in a particular group/movement/method comes to a day of reckoning and has to unpack the baggage they’ve intentionally or unwittingly picked up and carried as their own along the way.  And it’s in the unpacking that some things — some ideas or ideals — are seen for what they are: good…

  • Aging - Potpourri - THM - THM style Recipes - Trim Healthy Mama - umpteenth+1 diet

    the comforting hedge

    Four months ago I began the THM journey and what amazes me is how simple it’s been to stay the course with no intention or temptation to quit or get it over with.   I’ve never stayed with a plan in my life—but that’s not to say I’ve not tried a whole bunch of plans, diet-shakes, crash diets — only sticking with them for a few days or even a few weeks but always going back to the whatever, whenever way of eating.  The THM plan is so simple… the freedom is incredible.  There is so much freedom — but that…

  • Potpourri - THM - THM style Recipes - Trim Healthy Mama - umpteenth+1 diet

    so many THM resources

    There are so many Trim Healthy Mama resources to give you all the tools you need to succeed in changing your eating lifestyle and find “your trim” or you level of healthy weight and energy.  Along with all that, you’ll see that all these resources will give you ample instruction, inspiration to press on each day as you explore all the many meal and snack options along with daily doses of encouragement and a push now and then to run the race… or to get back up and keep running the race if/when you fall off course.  Joining the Facebook…

  • Potpourri

    Valentines ♥ Day

    Have you been making plans for Valentines Day?  Are you looking for some ideas?  Well, for the last couple of years I’ve occasionally pinned some ideas on my Pinterest – Valentines Day – page and have been reviewing some of them this morning — so many great ideas, so little time to do them all!!  Maybe there’ll be some baking or craft ideas to spark your imagination or give you some inspiration to try something new.  Before Pinterest, I posted things to my old website on the Valentines page.  Now, the things there are many, many years old, but I…

  • Health / PCOS - Heart-Attack-recovery - my story - PCOS - Potpourri - THM - Trim Healthy Mama - umpteenth+1 diet

    THM… so much hope

    As I press on, on the THM (Trim Healthy Mama) journey, I have so much hope.   I have so much hope bcz I’m so not alone and I’m so not seeing this as a diet but a different way of approaching health and nutrition.  I say this bcz I’ve experienced so many diets in the past.  And the difference, for me, with Trim Healthy Mama (after this, THM), is that it’s not a limited time diet.  By this I mean, it’s not the lemonade-type diet or the military-type diet or the mama with a wayward child/depression diet or the zone-type…

  • Potpourri - Trim Healthy Mama

    Discipline… THM

    It seems to me that nothing spotlights the will or the flesh quite like discipline.  I’ve found (yet again) that I surely relate well to the Biblical passage regarding the willing spirit and weak flesh.  Though that passage doesn’t necessarily relate to undisciplined eating, it does relate to the flesh and its incredible weakness under temptation.   Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing,  but the flesh is weak.” Matthew 26.41 As I sojourn on the THM path (Trim Healthy Mama), each day I find new things over which I seem to have…

  • my story - Potpourri - THM - Trim Healthy Mama - umpteenth+1 diet

    Beginning the THM Journey

    As I’ve begun the THM (Trim Healthy Mama) journey, I’m surprised how easy it has been to change my eating *lifestyle* bcz, seriously, food is a lifestyle with me — and I know it is very much so for many other mamas.  Food speaks volumes for most mamas… it says, I love you… I care about you… I’m thinking of you… I’m celebrating with you… I am making memories memories with and for you… setting traditions you’ll carry on in your own homes some day.  Food says: welcome home. Events of most days are food related.  Talk about food, think…

  • Potpourri

    ♫ Green Shoe Studio

    In celebration of marriage, I want to share this beautiful story.  It’s a precious testimony of long love… a story of a man missing his wife, his precious wife of seventy-five years… which he says was a dream. From Green Shoe Studio:  A Letter from Fred

  • Potpourri

    Treading where…

    I wanted to go back and grab a couple of entries….  I’m linking back to these to show just how far society has gone in just a very short time.  In light of one of Voddie Baucham’s keynotes at the Christian Heritage Homeschool Conference this past weekend: ‘ Gay is NOT the new Black ,’ I’ve decided to repost a couple of things I originally posted in my blog in 2006. My desire is not to be sensational, alarmist or divisive, but to encourage very wise and careful thought and examination regarding the avalanche of lies, myths and social/societal manipulation. …

  • Family - Homemaking - Planner - Potpourri

    Chore sticks…

    A clean home is a happy home.  I know, I know, if ever there was a guilt inducing statement, that is it!  But, seriously, think with me for a moment… consider some of the very best homemaker feelings/accomplishments.  Doesn’t a ship-shape-top-to-bottom tidy give you a great feeling?  How about a thoroughly cleaned out garage, a freshly cleaned and ordered pantry, fridge or bedroom closet?  If you stop and think about these sorts of things, you’ll probably quickly remember how great it felt and how smoothly things seemed to run in your home.  Remember?  With the advent of our son getting…