Looking for comments

Okay, so the grocery game isn't really my thing. But I've thought about making it my thing a couple of times. Then last Thursday, I went to a church workshop that talked about utilizing the Grocery Game to save money in order to give away more of what we have.

A lot of people know that health is important to me. I fail at it many times, but it is, nonetheless, an important part of my life and in the forefront of my mind (even when I'm eating a half gallon of ice cream).

I've also had numerous conversations with various individuals prior to and since this particular workshop regarding the benefits of going organic. There is a ton of information out there about the things that are put into our food, the way our food (in animal form) is treated and why we should avoid things with refined sugars, hormones, etc. and eat as many raw and unprocessed foods as possible.

So here's my question. If you are a Christian, or Spiritual at the least, what do you think: Should your family eat the cheapest food you can find so you can give money away, or should you spend a little more on the products that are known to be better for them and, quite frankly, take into consideration the treatment of God's creation (whether it's your body or that of the cow that produced the milk you're putting into it)?

This is a tough question and I have a feeling there will be all kinds of opinions. But I'm honestly interested in your opinion, so let 'er rip!

My house is a mess and so am I

My current Facebook status says, "Leanne isn't sure if it's good or bad." That's one of those ambiguous jr. high kind of things to say, but that's how I'm feeling about my life right now. The last couple weeks have been like a roller coaster for me and I honestly can't tell you if it's a good thing or a bad thing. My house is a mess, my brain is even more of a mess, my body's in terrible condition, my self-control is nil, my purpose is unclear and I can't find anything that brings me fulfillment.

I sat outside staring up at the sky crying for a while tonight. It's the first time in a very long time that I've felt that free. Like I was the only person in the world and the space was full of God-like substance instead of smog and noise. It was nice. I mean, I didn't get any answers, but it was good to just be broken for a little while with nothing that I had to try to hold together.

And maybe that's a good place to be. Maybe I need to be able to cry and to know that there's space for God to let me cry. It's one thing to cry. It's another thing to cry out. Crying out takes an admittance of failure, or at the very least, weakness. Crying can be a response to anything from fear to self-pity to anger to hurt feelings...and it can easily turn into bitterness. And those tears can last a while before coming to the point of crying out. They may never make it to that point for some people. But crying out...that's when something starts to happen. When Job started crying out, God started talking back. When David cried out, God considered him a man after His own heart. When Jesus cried out, his final breath was expelled. And then 3 days later, he rose up from the dead.

Here's hoping for new life.

Hello, Old Friend

This morning, I decided to check out all the "new" comments to my blog...you know...all the ones from the last 3 months. I honestly didn't think that I would pick this up again. I'm a seasonal doer of anything. I do it for a while and then I stop. But I've had some people ask me when I would be blogging again, so for today, I'm back.

We celebrated Isabella's 2nd birthday yesterday. She's growing into a beautiful, fun and sweet little girl. We spent most of the afternoon at the beach. This is, of course, after we spent 2 hours looking for parking. Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating, but I've never spent more than 5 minutes looking for parking at Seal Beach. We spent what felt like hours driving past full parking spots and No Parking on Monday signs only to end up in the pay parking lot with a pay machine that would not accept my credit card. An old surfer told me that apparently that part of the contraption wasn't working yet and I could go to the ATM at the liquor store. After leaving the parking lot and almost coming to blows with the ATM at said liquor store because it didn't want to read my card the first 5 times I swiped it, I got my $20, quietly returned to the passenger seat of the car and we returned to the parking lot.

Returning to the payment machine with my $20 in hand, I thought I'd have my parking ticket in no time. Wrong. I put the bill in the machine. Twice. Fail. Fail. Then some nice people came up behind me, and I switched bills with them. Fail. Again. And again. And again. So I asked if they would like to go ahead of me so that I can find the man patrolling with the ticket book, explain to him my sob story and pay him the whole flipping $20 (it's only $6 to park all day) just so he won't give me what's probably a $100 ticket for parking illegally...which, by the way, we were about to do.

Because God knew that I was about to hurt someone, he sent a nice man in a red truck to the ladies at the payment machine. The man offered them his all day parking ticket. They had already gotten their ticket, so they yelled over to me that he was giving up his ticket. I walked over to the lady with the ticket in her hand, thanked her profusely, threw the ticket on the dash of my car and went about my day incident-free.

And not only was it homicide-free, it was actually enjoyable. Bella loved playing in the water. She was soaked and so was I after the myriad of "Come on, Mommy"'s I got from her at water's edge. We took some breaks from the waves to dig in the sand and fly her kite (which Daddy put together and held most of the time). After a couple hours of that, we got some lunch at the NY pizza shop on Main Street. I call it a shop because it feels like a real pizza shop. It's super good. Bella enjoyed her pesto pizza and lemonade, as well as the fruit snacks she was given by the pizza man.

Last night, a couple of friends came over unexpectedly for Bella's birthday cake which was fun for the girls (and boy) as well as the parents. This was a good impromptu party considering I must have been delusional planning Bella's party for a Saturday. But more on that later.

Happy St. Patrick's Day. I'm off to prepare Bella for a different kind of birthday treat...her 2 year Doctor's visit. Woot.