My Thoughts on Finances

It is a well known fact that financial woes are the number one reason for divorce. First we have to recognize that financial problems have little to do with money, but we focus on money because money is easy to blame. We think we don't have enough or we think that our spouse just spends too much. More often than not our financial woes are simply a matter of ignorance, pride, and seeking comfort where you can not find it.
One of the reasons that we struggle is because we do not know how to communicate our emotions when it comes to finances and finances are all about controlling emotions. A man wants to be everything to his wife. He wants to feel confident and competent when it comes to running the affairs of his family. He wants to provide the necessities as well as the wants of his family. He does not want to know that he is falling short of his own high expectations. In the case of finances pride and ignorance seem to go hand in hand. Women on the other hand have the desire to feel secure and protected from their dragons. They place a high expectation on their man, because every woman knows that she married superman. She wants to believe that her every wish is at his command. Emotional spending might be blamed on both the man and the woman for these reasons.
Most of us grew up being taught how to tie our shoes, how to recognize the alphabet, and how to do math, but we do not learn about finances. Finances were done in the "office." Out of sight of the little people. All we know is mom and dad had money or they didn't have money. We never saw the games they played or the negotiations that they made in order to keep their household running. We have grown up for the most part without really learning the principles that govern money...especially budgeting.
Budgeting is where reality hits. As I said men do not want to know that they are failing and women do not want to feel unsecure. When we budget we have to face the facts. We have to step out of the fairy tale where money grows on trees and as long as we have checks we must still have money.
This is where a man and woman have the opportunity to grow closer together than any other way. When a husband and wife sit down together the woman encouraging her man, showing complete faith in him, beautiful things can happen. When a man sits down with his wife and they can create a workable plan, he will experience a hope like no other.

Once you can resolve to dealing with the real emotional issues involved with finances then you are ready to find the tools you need to make it as easy as possible. There are many ideas and many methods that have worked for others, but when it comes to comprehensive budgeting and planning tools I don't know of anyone with a better plan than Dave Ramsey. I highly recommend finding him on your radio or at least visiting his website and buying a couple of books. The principles he teaches are those we have been taught in the gospel all our lives, but we did not understand how to do it.  http://www.daveramsey.com/
My own experience with his program has been nothing less than miraculous. We went from going $200 dollars in debt every month to saving $1000 and paying off another $700 in 3 months. We went gang busters at first then we slowed down, but we were still able to pay off  $13,000, making less than $40,000 per year, and we did it in 2 1/2 years. We also remodeled my daughters room replaced a transmission and bought a used car in that same time period.

There is nothing more frustrating than working hard only to find out your debt load has increased. What is even more frustrating is watching someone do the same stupid things we were doing, and knowing that they will have to find out for themselves that it doesn't have to be that hard.

Reporting In Week 2

End of Week 1

This week has been a stepped up effort in my experiment on Eat Less and Move More. I have not done anything super strenuous, but have settled in mentally to my new eating habits and have continued to increase my movements in different ways.

This week I have increased my movement in a couple of ways. First, I did the full week of 10 minute workouts with my buddies from the Biggest Losers dvd. They have been most helpful. At first I felt very uncoordinated and I believe that is about as far as I have gotten in the past. These 10 minute work outs have given me hope because I didn't have to endure the humiliation of a 30 minute or one hour work out of never finding my coordination. Another mental hurdle climbed and conquered.
Second, I decided to use my exercise ball in the evenings while watching Television. I do not do any real organized exercise routine, but I bounce and roll on the ball I use it to stretch and to work on my abs, whatever comes to mind as I am just trying to keep moving. I figure tonight I might increase my moving some in anticipation of weigh ins tomorrow morning.
I am unsure of my losses this week but I am sure that I will be close to breaking that 180 lb mark. I am noticing how much easier it is to breath and I have more energy than I have in years.

As far as eating less, this week I have concentrated not so much on what I eat, although I have noticed that I am more inclined to eat healthier when I slow my eating down. So far, I have started my breakfasts off with eggs and toast and been full with 2 eggs and a piece of toast. Mentally, I have been trying to recognize when I am filled without stretching my stomach. My goal is to shrink my stomach so that less will be needed to fill it up. I am anticipating that there will be days in the future where I may go to all you can eat buffet. My challenge instead of seeing how much I can eat, but how many different things I can eat. Smaller portions will be the trick and not doing it very often which wont be hard because we don't go to them very often anyways.
My snacks have consisted of cottage cheese, crackers, cheese, and my favorite hint of lime Tostitos. The trick has been to slow down my snacks. What normally would take me 5 minutes to scarf down, now is done in half an hour to 45 minutes. Instead taking handfuls out of the bag I take one at a time and I savor them. I have noticed that the sharp cheddar is easier to savor than cottage cheese so I need less of it to satisfy my craving for flavor. Although I did mix cottage cheese and sour cream with ranch and that was good as well. Another very important thing has been my water intake. I have a 59fl oz container that I fill up every morning when I get to work and I drink 2 to 3 of them throughout the day, that is not to mention what I drink at home. It is amazing how I can feel the fat just washing away as water and gravity takes its course through the body.

I am no expert, but I do believe that each of us has the answer within us as to what our body needs. We often will turn to others to find the answer we seek because our own emotional fears of dealing with who we have become. Be assured that it is not important how we see what we have become so much as it is that we see ourselves for who we really are. God did not send us here to wallow in our misery. God sent us that we might have joy. Be true to yourself there are harder things in life than losing weight, losing weight will simply be the unveiling of what God and probably everyone else around you has seen all along.

End of Week 2

Week#2   282.8 lbs

My Thoughts On Weight Loss, Dieting, and Exercise

Before

Recently I joined a Biggest Loser weight loss competition. I have always maintained an attitude that I do not like diets, nor do I like exercise. To me those words are temporary words, words that lead to epic failure. As I  prepared for this contest I knew that I would have to make some fundamental changes in my thought process.
First I would have to change the way I thought of food. And second I would have to change the way I thought of exercise.
As for food, I used to eat whatever I could and I ate until I was full. I like food and I thought the natural thing to do with food you liked was eat more of it. Whenever the pangs of hunger hit it meant that I needed food and I needed it now. It really wasn't that I ate huge, monster amounts of food. It just was that I ate more than I needed to. I did not live an active lifestyle and I ate like I did.
As I look back I have had several things that have influenced my mental change. One most recently was a radio show that I just caught maybe about five minutes of. A gentleman named Gabriel claimed that he had weighed over 400 lbs and lost all of his excess weight without dieting. He claimed that we have emotional switches that control our weight gain and weight loss. That some emotional stressor causes a part of our brain to think we are going through a famine and it causes our body to store fat. He claimed that if we could get rid of that stressor that our body would naturally lose the weight. I am not sure why, but something rang true and I know that most of the battle is in your mind. Something clicked inside of me and I realized that I could eat less and still enjoy eating.
I promised that I would not go on a diet, but I would eat less of what I do eat and I would introduce some new foods into my menu. After I started this process the next step came when I started fixing breakfast one morning and I found myself asking if I had fixed too much. At that point I realized that mentally I had changed the way I thought about food. If I like what I am eating I now eat it slower and keep it in my mouth longer. It is not a race to eat as much as I can, but a challenge to keep the flavor lasting longer. Lately I have been enjoying my food more and when I am done I don't feel that stuffed feeling that I am sure caused my body more stress.
I have always felt that the stress of worrying about our weight was more dangerous than the weight itself. Which I still believe, but I also realize that the weight causes its own stress on our body and carries with it its own dangers. So, my philosophy has been if your weight bothers you get rid of it, but don't worry about it, just do it.
As for exercise, again another mental hurdle had to be overcome. That one came about a couple of years ago while taking a class one the mind body connection. We were given an assignment to increase our movement. We did not call it exercise because we did not want to get in a routine. Instead we were to try different types of exercises, from aerobics, Thai-chi, dancing, walking, or whatever increased our movement. This eased my mind on exercise which again I knew I could not maintain a routine for the rest of my life. I like variety and I know that a routine would not feel natural to me. Instead I just had to move more. Now exercise is just a tool to help me move more.
These hurdles have helped me start the process of becoming physically what I already am mentally. My Moto has become Eat Less and Move More and Become Physically what you already are Mentally.

Ouch!!! Watch it fall.

Week #1 I dropped 12 lbs. 

Free Enterprise and Personal Discipline

There are many who want to discredit Free Enterprise and Capitalism because some make a lot while others make little to nothing. I believe that Free Enterprise and Capitalism are being blamed for the greed of Commercialism. Even at that it is often overlooked that poverty in a Free Enterprise System has a higher standard of living than in any other system in existence today.

It does not matter what system we look at, throughout the world of ideas, greed will always play a factor in the haves and the have nots. Those who promote progressivism, socialism, or communism can not dispute that the upper echelon of society will still control the majority of the capital. The only difference between these systems is who has control of the capital and how much they are willing to allow others some stake in the game.
I believe that despite the frailties of Free Enterprise it is still far fairer than any other system in that you do not need to be a part of the political elite to own property and or influence the direction of the country, all you need to do is find a need and fill it.
Commercialism however has a tendency to take a more aggressive line and creates needs out of wants and flips priorities on their head. Living with Commercialism requires a personal discipline, but I believe that with personal discipline comes personal growth and the opportunity to increase in wisdom and understanding.

For Better Or Worse Is No Cliche

Divorce is never a good thing, but the lesser of two evils. God does not expect us to stay in a relationship that potentially is damning, but he does expect us to stay in a relationship that is potentially exalting. In this life we often see things in our spouse that is annoying, and some times even destructive, but honestly we must look at ourself and realize that we ourselves do things that are annoying and destructive.
Sometimes, when we are hurt by the actions of our loved ones we think that divorce is the only solution. It is not! When we have entered a covenant with God we become perfected in Christ. None of us are perfect to our covenant, we may do well, but if we were perfect there would be no reason that Christ should atone for our sins. We do our best and we work with our spouse to overcome issues along the way. That is what our covenant is and that is what exalts our relationship.
When we enter the next life most things that are important to us here will not matter there. With that in mind we should truly seek to minimize our own annoyances here in this life.
For better or for worse must never be turned into a trite cliche.
However, when abuse of any kind is involved I believe the potential of the relationship is damned. Abuse has no place in a temporal or eternal relationship.

Dad's Bread Recipe

Dad's Bread was famous in our neighborhood. I remember we had an auction once and one loaf went for $35 dollars. My dad was kind of embarrassed about the fuss, but we all new it was good. Dad didn't ever go straight off of a recipe, but this was pretty much it, except he mixed the wheat with 50% white flour. I purposely have left out one secret ingredient, but then again how do you measure love?

2 Tbls Yeast in ½ cup warm water
5 cups hot water from tap
7 cups unsifted whole wheat flour
2/3 cups honey (or molasses, or 1/3 cup each)
2/3 cups cooking oil
2 Tbls Salt
5-6 cups more whole wheat flour

1. Sprinkle yeast in ½ cup warm water. Do Not Stir
2. Combine 5 cups hot tap water and 7 cups flour in Mixer Bowl and mix on LOW speed, while you combine oil, salt and honey (or molasses) in a separate bowl.
3. Add the salt, oil and honey to the mixture in the bread mixer, and continue to mix until everything is well blended.
4. By this time, the yeast should have had plenty of time to brew. The yeast should be on top of the water. Add to ingredients in the mixing bowl and blend thoroughly.
5. Add 5-6 more cups of flour. Let the dough knead on LOW speed for 10 minutes
6. During this time, grease four bread pans. Oil hands and the counter. Remove dough from mixer ¼ of the amount at a time. The dough will be a little sticky, but will easily form in to loaves by shaping on the oiled counter and drawing in four ways to center of dough to form the loaf. Place in pan with folded side to bottom of pan. Watch the bread so that it does not rise more than 1/3 in bulk.
7. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes. When bread has baked, remove immediately fomr the pans. For a softer crust, brush tops of loaves with oil or butter. Cover with a kitchen towel to cool.

Variations
Sweet Rolls: pat out desired amount of basic bread recipe to ½’ thickness. Sprinkle on cinnamon. Sugar, raisins and nuts. Roll up and slice off about 1” thick. Place in muffin tins or pans. Bake at 350 degrees 20 minutes. Add glaze, if desired.

Hamburger or Hot Dog Buns: Add rye flour to whole wheat half and half. Form dough into buns. Brush on egg white and sprinkle with sesame or poppy seeds.

Other Things On My Mind

Other Things On My Mind will will feature some of my families favorite recipes and some of my hobbies. I hope you enjoy them as they come.

Knowing Your Weaknesses is a Strength

Knowing your weaknesses is a strength. Dwelling on them is a weakness. God gives us weakness that we might be humbled sufficient to realize our need for an atonement. Once we realize the need for an atonement then He can reveal the reality of Jesus Christ.