I have moved...

Hi everyone,

I've decided to move my blog to http://www.bodmer.co.za/

Please come and visit me at the above link to read about my thoughts, random adventures and cooking experiments.

xKx

Gardening Goals

Our vegetable garden has been SUPER productive over the last few weeks. Not only has our spinach bounced back but also a million tomato plants have decided to grow. We also made some exciting discoveries this weekend when I took a peek at my veggie garden.

 

This weekend I was surprised by finding a baby cauliflower growing in our garden. We planted the cauliflower seeds FOREVER ago. I would say about 6 months ago. I also forgot which plants were the cauliflower and which were the broccoli.  It was one of the greatest things EVER to find the planting finally making a cauliflower.

 

Another exciting discovery in our garden was finding our lemons, which are HUGE, are finally turning yellow. This is MOST exciting because they actually haven't been stolen off our tree yet. There's a lady where we live who thinks our garden is communal property and comes and helps herself to our lemons. She's been away for a while so our lemons have lasted and we actually get to see them. YAY!

I've really been enjoying our garden lately. We've been diligently maintaining it every two weeks or so and it's really paying off. We spend an hour or two trimming bushes, raking and pulling up weeds every second Sunday. I no longer look at the garden and go, "oooh we need to weed" or "ooooh I need to give the garden some love". Now I look at it and go "Oh, how I love my garden." This is exactly what I did this morning as I walked outside and looked over the garden as I walked to the gate. This feeling also makes it seem like I am finally reaching, well getting closer to reaching my gardening goals in life.

xKx



YAY for 22 Months!

I've had the privilege of doing life with the awesome, good looking and pretty much amazing human-being for 22 months today.

 

I'm really looking forward to continuing on this journey we get to walk together with God. I'm pretty sure He has something awesome in store for us.

 

xKx

God's Mirror List

For the past two weeks we've been working through a two part sermon by Louie Giglio called The Man In The Mirror

The thing that really stuck out to me from the whole sermon series is how we really need to start thinking about ourselves in the same way that God sees us. Louie used a mirror in the sermon and wrote a list of things of how God sees us and what He says to us when He looks at us. 

God's Mirror List

1. I love you
2. I'm grateful fro you
3. You're a rare and beautiful treasure
4. I forgive you
5. I'll hold you to high standards with appropriate amounts of grace and mercy
6. You have a special calling
7. I'm cheering for you, and I believe in you.

When we really believe that this is what He says to us about ourselves it makes it a whole lot easier to believe that you are here with a purpose and that you do matter. You're also able to be used by God to tell others that this is how He seems them as well. We become a channel....

For me, who has self worth issues it really does help to see this list every day and then say the things to myself to remind myself that this is how God sees me. I also think I should change how I see me and see myself the same way. This is the hard part - but I'm open to doing it.

My favourite one at the moment is 7 - I'm cheering for you. So often we get so despondent and feel like no one notices us or says "well done, you did great", but this really is not true. God is our number one fan. Every single day He's standing there, with a bunch of angels cheering us on, telling us we are great and we matter. How cool is that!

I think the challenge is putting this into practice, but I more than willing to change my current thought patterns to mirror more of Gods.

xKx

Don't go to bed angry

At our wedding reception we placed "Advice for the bride and groom" cards on the tables for our guests to fill in. I can probably say that the most common/most repeated piece of advice we received was to not go to bed angry.  The advice is biblical and comes from Ephesians 6:26-27 "And don't  sin by letting anger control you. Don't let the sun go down while you are still angry, for anger gives a foothold to the devil." But what does this mean?

I think that it does just that - if you don't sort out whatever is making you angry with someone then the devil will have lots of  fun filling your mind with horrible thoughts, turn your heart hard and make you bitter about the whole situation, as well as cause even more hurt and pain in your life. The devil kind of reminds me of a rusty fishing hook. Once you get that stuck in you it creates a painful,  gross and infected sore in you. When I was thinking about this earlier - I was like "sjoe! - I totally don't want that in me"

I can honestly say that I am not a "let's talk right now and sort it out right now" kind of person. When I get angry about something I need a couple of hours to cool down, become less emotional and then come back with a well thought out solution or way to explain how I'm feeling. In reality this can't always happen - especially when you don't know when you will see the person again, so sometimes it's best to take a deep breath and sort it out.

In other words, I don't think this verse is saying that we should sort things out with people as soon as they happen and not wait until another time to sort things out. You may tell yourself that now may not be the right time - but in all honestly I don't think there will be a "right time". I also think a lot of hurt can be prevented if you sort it out now. Which is also what I think the verse is saying - instead of giving the devil a chance to turn something poisonous and create havoc, rather stop him in his tracks and fix whatever is causing anger or hurt with someone.

I've kind of been learning this in my marriage. When David and I leave things that have upset us, we often have a much bigger argument than if when we sort it out straight away. I also find that if I don't sort it out the same day I get more angry and even bitter about the situation and then I'm even more illogical in my argument. I also find that if we sort things out sooner we're able to carry on with life with no undercurrent or disconnection between us.

God created us for relationships and to have connection with people, why let some anger get in the way and cause disconnect. I think he knew what he was thinking when he inspired the writer of Ephesians to write this verse. If we give the devil a foothold in our relationships he will take advantage and destroy all connection which could end relationships.

Don't wait until tomorrow to fix something, rather sort it out as soon as possible. If it's not possible to do it right away as it happens because you're about to walk into an event of some kind wait until the first opportunity to do it straight after - don't let it fester and get worse.

xKx

 

James and Jojo got married

Yesterday we go got to share in the start a new chapter for James, David's younger brother and Jojo, a friend of mine. They celebrated a friendship that changed from friends, to good friend to husband and wife. I am super excited to see how God uses them as a married couple in this new chapter and adventure as He fulfils His purpose through them both individually and as a couple.

xKx

I started studying again

... so this kind of happened again.

I decided to do an online digital marketing course this year. It's a 10 week short course through Getsmarter. It was kind of a tough decision to make regarding what I wanted to study as there is so much to choose from, but I decided on this because deep down I've always wanted to study digital marketing and as an added bonus my company offered to pay for me to do the course.


How it works is that each week a new module is released and you work through notes, (a lot I might add), and a mini video lecture before completing an assignment, as well getting involved in a group discussion on the topic.


The course started last week and I'm really enjoying it, I feel like I'm using my brain again which is a good thing. The only hard thing is working in the evenings when I am super tired. I really don't know how people do it, or how I did it when I was a student in round one and two. Even though this taking a lot of "I can do this" and "it's another late night" I am super excited to learn everything that I'm learning.

xKx