25 June 2015

Just a little bit of restoration

This week has been rough for reasons I can't even explain. I guess it was just one of those weeks. This morning when I woke up I was like it's time to tap into God and just soak in him, so I put on You make me brave by Amanda Cook and Bethel music



and now I'm listening to this.. You don't miss a thing by Amanda Cook and Bethel


On days and weeks like this one I think it's best to just tap in and get a bit of restoration...

xKx

16 June 2015

1 Year Anniversary

On Sunday, 14 June it was David's and my one year anniversary. 


We celebrated by going up the West Coast for the weekend. We stayed at The Oystercater Lodge in Shelley Point - it is by far one of the best places we have ever been and perfect for an anniversary weekend away. Besides long walks on the beach we also explored the numerous farm stalls along the west coast, as well as visited the Fossil Park. 

Some travelling photos


The view from our room, walks and sunsets


It was really misty on Sunday... you could get lost
 

Vasco De Gama was there



 The West Coast Fossil Park

A snake vertibrae fossil
a fossilized dune
 The grand finale to our anniversary weekend was receiving our photos from Leigh-Anne. Our photos came out way better than I imagined.

 

I am super amped to spend forever with David because I love him to amilinity... and he's pretty much my favourite person ever!


xKx

A Hot Chocolate Party

On Friday evening my I had a hot chocolate party at my house with my friends. It was sooooo much fun and a brilliant idea for a cold winter evening. Everyone had to bring their favourite dunkable which meant there was an abundance of dunkables to choose from and tons left over to be consumed by David.




This is one of my top  evenings from this year!
xKx

9 June 2015

Choosing My Husband Every Day

On Sunday we watched a terrible movie called This is where I leave you. I don't really get the whole point of the movie and bits of it was funny, but the stuff that made it terrible was how married people in the movie had affairs willy-nilly instead of trying to fix their already broken marriages. There was also quite a bit of bad language - but that just added to my "this movie was terrible". All I saw in the movie was how people chose to stop loving their spouse, stopped choosing them and then went and chose someone else.

When is it not ok to choose your spouse? When is it ok to choose someone else? In my world - never!


David and I got married just about a year ago, (more about our wedding) and there has not been one day where I have not chosen him. There has also not been a single day where I have not chosen to love him. Love is not a feeling - it's more of a choice. It's something I choose to do.

I choose to love David because Jesus loved me first, (1 John 4:19). Jesus chose to love us. If we look at who he spent time with - the tax collectors, the prostitutes, the sick, the social outcastes - all the people who were seen as unlovable. Jesus chose to reach out to them and love them, that's why I choose to choose to love David - even on days when he's frustrating me and it's hard.

Choosing your spouse also helps you to fight temptation when it comes your way. The devil has a funny way of presenting things to distract you it can be looking at something you shouldn't, holding someones gaze for too long etc.. You can fight these attempts of the devil to get you to stumble by just reminding yourself that you choose your spouse.

When you choose someone it means that you are committed to that person for forever. It means that you won't look around to see if there is anyone better around you. It's choosing to honour and respect them and it's choosing to love them every day.

How do you do this practically - for me it's a simple as saying each morning "I choose you, David"

I think that when we choose our spouse daily it just strengthens our foundation, makes temptations fade away and gives God the glory in our marriage.

xKx


3 June 2015

Is Banting Affordable For The Average South African

I've decided to jump on the band wagon and start banting.

The main reason I've decided to try this is to see for myself to see if it does really give you more energy, makes you feel better and all that added "feel good" stuff, as well to see if it really is affordable for the average South African to do.

I was given Tim Noakes recipe book a while ago, but one day last week I decided to do some research on this whole thing. One thing I have discovered from all my research and chatting to someone it's not all about NO CARBS as everyone seems to scream at anyone who is in hearing range. It is all about no sugar - the new devil in the world and yes carbohydrates are mostly sugar but the whole point of banting is to LIMIT your carbohydrate intake. Tim Noaks explains it really well on the FAQ page on the Real Meal Revolution website http://realmealrevolution.com/faq

My understanding from this is that it's all about my carb intake, while cutting out simple sugar in my diet such as all the sweets, cake, chocolate in my diet. For now I'm sticking to the 50g of carbs a day and increase it later if I loose too much weight - which so far has been easy to stick to and I can still eat fruit and have the odd cup of hot chocolate, or even a piece of dark chocolate. I'm going to wait a few weeks before I attempt a piece of chocolate though - I would gobble the whole lot up if I tried today. The Real Meal Revolution website also has some really nice lists to help you know what to eat and how much to eat.http://realmealrevolution.com/real-food-lists

I think our mind set shouldn't be that sugar is from the devil - I think we need to think about eating real whole food and not processed ready to eat food that is packed with additives. I also think it's ok to eat a piece of cake at someone's birthday and wedding - it's all about how much you eat.

So for now I'm counting my carbs and watching my budget to see if this really is more expensive.

xKx

1 June 2015

When did it become ok to tell someone they've gotten fat?

I grew up with the following saying...

 
The minute something mean or rude came out of my mouth I'm pretty sure I would have this saying said to me. I think it's a fundamental thing that people need to know because words REALLY hurt and can break a person.
 
Over the last few months a few people have had no tact around me and told me that I'm getting fat which is somewhat more hurtful than when people have told me that I've put on weight. These people probably don't know that I fight a daily battle with my self-image. They don't know that I already think I am fat most days or look fat/frumpy. I get these are all lies in my head and most days I am able to fight the battle pretty well but the minute someone says that I've put on weight or am fat I fall apart and the battle is lost. It's also easy for people to say - "don't believe it", "you look lovely" but all those things get shouted over by the negative words I've just heard.
 
I know I may get it wrong and say a hurtful thing to someone without thinking and sometimes it's just to be mean... I'm not perfect BUT it's never acceptable. It's never right NO MATTER what the situation - even if I opened my mouth and said something without thinking. There's never am excuse to say something unkind and hurtful, so why has it become acceptable for people to tell other people they have gotten fat? I clearly missed the memo and the follow up memo to smile and not let it affect you either...
 
I think if more people live with this thought, "If you can't be kind be quiet" a lot more people wouldn't get hurt by silly words, or have their self-esteem, confidence or self-image crushed by someone who forgot to think before they spoke.
xKx