Hows and Whys of Whole30

I briefly mentioned in my last post that my husband and I are embarking on a Whole30 Challenge starting today.  I feel like I have already learned quite a bit and identified what the greatest challenges will be for us on this journey.  But first, let me explain what it is and why we're doing this.

Whole30 seems to be a combination of the whole foods and paleo diets.  Sugars, grains, gluten, artificial sweeteners, preservatives, dairy, additives, and probably a few other things that I'm forgetting ;)  are not allowed.  I first read about it on another blog, desired to try it, but didn't think my husband would be up for it.  I know from past experience that it just does not work for us to be eating two completely different ways.  It's too hard for me to watch him eat something I can't have, takes too much time to cook two different meals, and it's usually double the dishes (and we do not have a dishwasher).

However, we had previously agreed to do the Focus T25 exercise challenge by Beachbody to try and lose our vacation weight and tone up.  DH mentioned that he would like to try some kind of healthy, cleansing diet during the workout challenge, I showed him the Whole30 page, and here we are!

Our goals for this dietary challenge are not just weight loss - besides, it probably wouldn't be accurate as we're doing the exercise challenge at the same time.  We are hoping to:

1.  Cut out the cravings for sugar and grease.

2.  Cleanse!

3. To identify any other dietary headache triggers that one or both of us may have. (I have already identified MSG, aspartame, and excessive food coloring such as in Skittles as my migraine triggers)

4.  Segway into a healthier way of eating.  We pretty much eat a standard American diet, save for avoiding the items I listed above in number three.  I think we each manage about one vegetable and one-two fruits per day, and I want to do better than that.

5. Get better sleep.  I've testimonials of other people that have conquered this challenge and said they slept much better on this diet.  Since I still struggle with insomnia now and then, that'd be nice.

I think the hardest thing for me to give up is cheese (I'm from Wisconsin, what can I say?) :)  For my hubby, it's soda.  I also got a sudden, strong craving for hot, fresh homemade bread smothered with butter in the middle of church today... :)

Reflections from Day One - I feel good, actually.  I've eaten about 1200 calories worth of fruit, veggies, eggs, and meat.  The challenges of this are going to be that it's expensive, the planning and prep required for every meal and snack, and there are more dishes to do.

I hope to post updates along the way, and share the end results!

Yummy Recipes

Today's post will be a light-hearted, fun deviation from the norm around here :)

Thursdays are my 'cleaning day', so I tackled that this morning.  This afternoon, I decided to try a new pie recipe for dessert.  I had originally planned to make this on Sunday, but we're starting a Whole30 challenge on Monday, and I didn't want to have to throw away any leftovers.  I had my favorite dinner planned for tonight, and figured this would be an excellent follow-up.

First, the meal.  Chicken enchiladas.  I'm not a fan of the typical red enchilada sauce, but these don't call for any.  I stumbled across this in one of my church cookbooks awhile ago, and it's been a favorite ever since!

Chicken Enchiladas
3/4 cup shredded cooked chicken
2 T (or more) green chiles
3 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 C shredded mozzarella cheese
1/2 C milk
4 flour tortillas (I make mine from scratch)
Optional:  sour cream
Combine chicken, chiles, and cream cheese.  Mix thoroughly.  Put 1/3 C of mixture on each tortilla and wrap up.  Place in greased 9x9 glass dish, seam side down.  Pour milk over tortillas and cover with cheese.  Bake at 350 for 25 minutes.  Top with sour cream before serving, if desired.  Note:  This can easily be doubled and made in a 9x13 glass dish.  Today, I actually threw these in the Crock-pot on high for one hour, then on low for an additional hour.  It was just too hot to turn the oven on, and it worked great!

For dessert I made cream pie and tossed some partially thawed frozen berries on top right before serving.  I've never worked with gelatin before, and it's been years since I had to whip cream.  I was a bit nervous about this turning out, but it tasted great!  DH went back for seconds, so I'm assuming he really liked it as well :)

Our Milestone Blessing

I continued to be so humbled and amazed by how God is aligning all the steps for us to adopt.  After so many dark, lonely, and painful years, we see the light!

            If you’ve been following on our journey (I doubt many have, as I struggle to update this blog often!)  you know that we’ve been saving for several years to begin this journey.  We started work on a homestudy in November 2012, had an approved homestudy by March 2013, identified ‘our’ waiting child in April, and our dossier was shipped to Hong Kong on May 31^st.  Currently, we are waiting to be officially matched with this child, and then take the steps to secure a travel date (!).

            In early June, we met a savings goal for this adoption - $25,000 total saved, which should more or less cover all adoption expenses (including fees we have already paid).

            I am still astounded as to how that happened…but I’ll do my best to explain how we accomplished that.

            We didn’t fundraise, ask people for money, or apply for grants.  Not that we think there is anything wrong with that, but our area and situation wasn’t conducive to fundraising, we weren’t comfortable asking people for money, and by the time we were able to look at grants it was clear that we didn’t need them.

            We did: Live on one income (my husband’s) while saving mine (minus tithe and taxes) for three years.  The first year, I was working around 20-25 hours per week; the next two years it was a full 40 with the exception of summer and vacations. We saved part or all of any money we were given as gifts.  I signed up to be a consultant for Lilla Rose, started playing organ for church on occasion, and put those earnings into our adoption fund. 

            It doesn’t sound like much, and I amazed by God’s blessing and provision to make everything fall in place.  To Him be the glory, honor, and praise, both now and forevermore!

I am linking up with:

Father's Day

I'm sure I've mentioned previously that my husband is a pastor.  Today, as he was greeting our congregation leaving the sanctuary  one sweet little boy wished him, "Happy Father's Day."

My heart flipped over just a little, and I smiled.

Happy Father's Day to fathers, father-to-be, and those who long to be a father.

I continue to pray daily for the little one overseas that we have requested to make our child.  I pray that he is safe, that his needs are being met, and that we may be matched and united with him soon.

To our heavenly Father, God, be the glory, great things He has done!

Catching Up and Random Thoughts

First things first: Adoption update.  Last I posted, I was joyfully reporting that DH and I had identified a child that would like to proceed with adopting.  Since then, we have received a request from the overseas partner agency to explain why we wanted to adopt this child (and fulfilled their request), gotten our biometrics fingerprints done, received our USCIS approval ONE WEEK after getting the fingerprints done, scrambled to assemble the dossier and line up a final reference letter, and sent our dossier to our agency.  Our dossier was shipped to Hong Kong on May 31st!

It is just short of a miracle that our USCIS approval came as quickly as it did.  The timeframe we were given was five to eight weeks between fingerprints and approval.  I never dared dream the government would be so efficient!  I am still is joyful shock about that.  Praise God!

Now, we wait.  We need to be approved by the Hong Kong government to adopt a child, and to be approved by the overseas agency to adopt this specific child.  At that point we will be officially matched with this child.  We've been told that will take two to four months from the dossier submission.  Then we will wait for a court order and travel dates, which will likely take place either late winter or early spring.  I am praying that we will travel in early March at the latest.  "Our" child turns two around that time and I would love for him to celebrate his birthday with his mom and dad :), plus we will save ourselves the fees and hassle of updating our homestudy.

Finally, my random thought: You know you're a pre-adoptive parent if the first thing you grab to take to the basement during a tornado warning is the expandable file with copies of your homestudy and dossier.  ;)

April 23rd

Oh, my.  Oh, Lord – You are too good to us.  Your works are wonderful!  Truly, You know the plans you have for us!

WE HAVE IDENTIFIED OUR CHILD!

I NEVER expected this to happen so quickly and as easily as it did.  Let me tell the wonderful story….

One week ago today (April 16^th),  my car was in the shop for some minor repairs and routine maintenance. My husband was taking that day (a Tuesday) off instead of his usual Monday due to some schedule changes, so he picked me up from work, took me to a doctor appointment for a manipulation on my neck and upper back, then drove us to pick up my car and get some dinner.  On the way to the auto shop, I checked my e-mail on my phone and saw that we had a message in our private online adoption “portal” with the subject title “Waiting Child”.  This intrigued me…What about a waiting child, I wondered?  It was hard to wait to get home and see the actual message. 

When I was able to access it, this is what I read:

“Hi D and K,
We received a new referral through our partner in Hong Kong, and thought of your family. I wondered if you may want to take a look? If so, I am posting [child’s] referral here, [your social worker] is aware of this as well. Let me know your thoughts.”

Then I looked at the child study.  This is a more in-depth summary of a child than you would find in a photolisting, but not a complete medical report.  In this case, I learned this child’s gender, birthdate, medical diagnoses, and birth family background.  We didn’t have a preference on the gender.  I did review the birth family background, but honestly, it doesn’t have any bearing on our decision to consider a particular child or not.  The list of medical diagnoses was tricky – Hong Kong uses lots of British English medical terms that are tricky to ‘translate’, so there were several things we were unsure about, but we weren’t alarmed by any of the medical information.  The birth date was significant – I’ll get to that in a bit.

After taking a couple days to research things to the best of our ability, I called our doctor’s office to make an appointment to discuss this child’s file on Thursday (the 18^th). 

We met with our doctor on Monday the 22^nd and were encouraged.  Lots of the things we couldn’t figure out were not a big deal, just variations of normal.  He did say that this little guy looks “syndromic’, meaning he has the look and several anomalies that point to a possible genetic disorder.  I felt compelled to move forward. 

My husband kept asking me if I was ‘sure’.  I couldn’t say a certain ‘yes’.  I mean, it seems that in my (overly-realistic?  pessimistic?) mind that I can never give a certain answer.  There is always a shred of doubt that holds me back.  It was there when I chose a college, when I declared a major both times, on my wedding day, with job changes, etc.  And that ever-present little shred of doubt was still there, even though I wanted so badly to leap forward shouting, “Yes!”  We decided it would be wise to sleep on it at least one night before contacting our agency with an answer.

The next morning (Tuesday the 23^rd), I awoke at 5 a.m. thanks to our very active sump pump.  I had fallen asleep thinking about this child, and my thought was, “I want to say yes.”

I shared that with my husband when I arrived home from work, and he agreed.  We sent our agency the glorious message, “We would like to proceed!”

Our little one is a boy, just over a year old.  We are awaiting our USCIS approval so we can send in our dossier.  Our estimated time from dossier submission to being formally matched is 2-4 months (he is not "officially" ours until then), and we will travel 7-12 months after that.  Urgh – more waiting!  It is going to be so hard to know he is growing without us.  Ideally, we’d travel in January.  I am going to pray that we travel by early March at the latest, as that would save us the hassle and fee to update our home study.

And his birthdate…I just cannot go without mentioning this vignette that demonstrates how my God does all things well.  I had often heard from adoptive mamas that there was some special ESP about the day their child was born.  I basically considered that to be an exaggeration.  But God! 

The day our child was born, I was despairing.  I had been having a very strange period that week.  It came on time, but was extremely light and remained that way for 4-5 days.  I was going crazy wondering if it was implantation bleeding from a pregnancy.  I both did and didn’t want to be pregnant. I wanted to be a mother in whatever way God saw fit to answer my prayers, but I was also so sure we were going to adopt at that point.  I knew if I was pregnant, I would need to grieve again, this time for the adopted child we wouldn’t have at the time.  I went back and forth all week, debating to test or not to test, wondering what to pray for, struggling between hope and dread for conception and adoption alike.  I got two hours of sleep a night for three days straight and ended up leaving work early on that third day because I felt terrible, but picking up a pregnancy test on my way home.

I tested the next morning.  Negative.  And I wept for both relief and sorrow, pain and peace.  I both thanked God and was angry at him.  My full flow, of course, began later that day (and continued for 8 days afterward)….

…and halfway around the world, our son was born.

Oh Lord.  Who knows what He was trying to do with that lining up of events.  Perhaps it was a final test of my faith in the midst of infertility, or to prepare my heart for the rocky road of international adoption, or simply to strengthen me.  One thing is certain – He worked out for the best and for His glory.

As all great gifts from heaven do.

Clean Sweep!

When I first saw the introduction to the “Clean Sweep” series over on Caroline’s blog, I was intrigued, but not motivated.  I thought that surely I didn’t have the time and evergy while working full-time (and burning out fast as the end of the school year approaches!).

Then I saw her first challenge of creating a morning routine, and thought, ‘I could use that.”  Then I saw her organization of her boys’ bedrooms and thought, “Maybe I could learn how to spring clean from this challenge.”

So, consider me counted in!

Morning Routine

Rise

Eat breakfast

Brush teeth

Shower or wash face

Get dressed, makeup (except Saturday)

Walk the dog

Make bed

I tried this for the first time today and I thought it worked well!  Hopefully that can continue!

I would also like to set an evening routine, as that is the time I have a lot to get done and it’s easy to forget things.  Here’s the blueprint I followed last night, and am working on tonight:

Walk dog

Prepare/eat dinner

Dishes and general kitchen clean-up

Make a lunch (Sun – Thurs)

One hour of free time for computer, TV, or ‘fun’ reading

Power90 workout (5 days per week Monday through Saturday)

Snack, take vitamins

Shower & brush/floss teeth

Lay out clothes for tomorrow

Bible reading

Take dog out if my husband hasn’t

Free time until I crash :)

I will strive to post weekly updates here.  I will share a general list of things I’d like to do this month, and get done what I can as well as whatever else I think needs doing.  

My general goal is to get one cleaning/organizing task done per day (except Sundays and the last two Saturdays of this month when we will be otherwise occupied).  This will be in addition to regular daily and weekly cleaning duties.  My spiritual goals will be 1) to read 3-5 chapters of Scripture daily (save for Sundays) and to read a chapter of Church Fellowship by John Brug each week.  This is the book we are working through in Bible Study, and I'd love to keep up in the study.

Yesterday, I went through the refrigerator and threw out old yucky items.  Thankfully, there weren’t many, but I did toss some homemade Italian dressing from awhile back, a green smoothie that got hidden back in…January…(I know, ICK!), and ¾ of a jar of salsa that neither of us liked.

Today, I actually washed out the inside of the fridge and cleaned out the freezer!  I tossed three things that were over a year old (freezer pickles from summer 2011, bread crumbs, and something else that was in a Ziploc bag).

Other things that I would love to get accomplished this month:

Dog poop clean-up in the yard

Wash curtains

Wash bedding

Go through clothes…and actually take them to Goodwill

Put more mulch in the flowerbed

Sweep out and straighten up the garage

De-clutter movie shelf

Re-arrange the living room furniture

Figure out a better system for shoes and coats in the entryway and front closet

De-clutter cabinet in guest bedroom

De-clutter storage boxes under the bed

I think that’s a good start!

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