The Green-Eyed Monster

It's embarrassing to admit this, but I find myself consumed with jealousy a LOT.

I get jealous when someone announces they're pregnant.

I get jealous when someone goes on vacation.

I get jealous when someone buys a house.

I get jealous over things I really have no need to be jealous of.

I'm not proud of it; I think my jealous tendencies are one of the ugliest things about me. I believe that things will happen when they are supposed to, but the problem is that I have very little patience.

Ah, patience, that lovely little virtue that has eluded me for so long.

How does one become patient? Is patience something you can learn? Sometimes I feel like I'm learning patience as I wait for things to happen, but then I hear something that makes me jealous and I feel like maybe I haven't learned any patience at all. It's a vicious circle.

I always seem to forget that I have God on my side. He should be the first place I go with my problems, yet I seem to forget that until I've dragged myself into a hole of pathetic despair and made everyone else around me feel worse too. I was feeling particularly woe-is-me about the baby thing last night, and it was really dragging me down. That's not the way I want to feel.

So I prayed for peace.

I woke up this morning feeling refreshed, although I did not have much sleep. I found out that yet another friend is pregnant today, and I did't get sad, or cry, or pout, or ask why not me...I just went on with my day. It was a good feeling. My God is always there for me when I need him, and that's an even better feeling.

On my Facebook feed, I saw this post from my granny's church: Sometimes the Lord calms the storm. Sometimes He lets the storm rage ansd claims his child. I think that's an important thing to remember. Sometimes bad things are going to happen in life. It's not a punishment; it's just something to learn from and grow from.

So I leave you with a scripture that I need to remember to hold close to my heart (it also happens to be the inspiration behind one of my favorite songs, so I'll leave you with that too :)

But those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary; they will walk and not be faint.

-Isaiah 40:31 (NIV)

"Everlasting God" performed by Lincoln Brewster

Natural Food Dyes

So the other day I came across 100 Days of Real Food (it's a great site...check it out if you'd like to cut out processed foods from your diet!). On the site, Lisa posted this post about why she hates artificial food dyes. I had never really stopped to think much about food dyes before, and I'd certainly never bothered to think about what they might be made of. Well it turns out they're made of petroleum. Yeah, petroleum, like what you put in your car. It's so bad that in the U.K. they require foods containing food dyes to have a warning label (there's more about that in Lisa's post).

(image from drpinna.com)

Take a minute to stop and think about how many foods we eat that contain artificial dyes. It's kind of scary, isn't it?

Fortunately, there are other ways to get color without using artificial food dyes.

India Tree makes a set of vegetable-derived natural food colorants, but they're kind of expensive (over $20 for three bottles).

You can also use natural foods to achieve colors.

Red-dried hibiscus flowers, beet powder, beet juice, pureed strawberries or raspberries

Orange-carrot or mango juice

Yellow-Tumeric, yellow bell pepper juice

Green-matcha green tea powder, spinach, avocado

Blue-red cabbage & baking soda, blueberries

Purple-red cabbage

Brown-cocoa or coffee powder

If you try any of these natural food dyes, let me know!

Isn't It Ironic?

Well, it's Wednesday. The day we were supposed to be getting to our new place in Tampa.

But we're still in Indiana.

Monday night, the night before we were supposed to leave, it was announced that the company Tom was going to be working for was pulling operations in Tampa (we're very glad we found this out before we went!). After a long discussion of what we want out of life, we have decided to stay in Indiana and pursue some pretty lofty dreams (there will be more about those later, but we're trying to get everything figured out before we go public). I think in the long run, we'll be a lot happier and creatively fulfilled.

On a related note, my wonderful mama gave me her barely-used sewing machine, so there's going to be a whole lot more crafting going on here! I'm really excited to get reacquainted with machine sewing, and there are several projects I'm excited to tackle.

So I'm sorry to build up all the excitement about a move that never happened, but there is a lot of excitement yet to come this year.

I've Been MIA

And I'm sorry about that.

Things have just been pretty crazy getting ready for the move (we leave TOMORROW!). I'll be blogging about our new place in a few days. I'm really excited to see it in person. I've never been to Florida (except for being inside the Miami airport, and I don't think that counts), and neither have Tom nor Archie, so this whole thing is going to be a completely new experience for our whole little family.
We'll be live tweeting on our way down, so make sure you follow me on Twitter for updates!
The next time I blog, it will be from Tampa!