Mike, Husband, Father, Teacher, Amateur Chef

January 12

2012-01-12T06:57:00.000-08:00

Today in my devotional I read from both the old and the new testaments, Deuteronomy and Matthew. In Deuteronomy we read about the law God gave to Israel. In Matthew we read Jesus' sermon on the mount. Both pertain to God's Law. I know that we are incapable of living a life that follows all of God's laws. Rom 3:23 "for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God;". So why does God give us a law that we are incapable of following. For one it provides the opportunity for us to realize the wonderful mercy of God. My devotional reading put it like this; We use a tape measure to measure a person's height. The tape measure tells us if the person has grown or not. The tape measure however does not promote growth. So the law is for us, it is God's example of what are lives should be like. The law in itself does not promote spiritual growth, only the grace of God at work in our lives can do that. So are we to sit back and say okay God I am sitting here waiting for you to change me? No, we have to do what is commanded of us. I had a conversation about this yesterday. It can be misunderstood that what I am saying is we are to just sit and do nothing and let God do everything for us. Well it doesn't work that way. We are to do everything we can and not worry about the results, we are to leave those up to God. When Jesus was talking about the birds and how God took care of them. God did not allow them to sit in their nest and him bring them food. They had to go out, look for it and God provided for them. The same goes for us we are to go out and do everything we can and then trust in God that he will provide the results he wants.

January 11

2012-01-11T08:00:00.000-08:00

Today in my bible study I read a verse, "Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?" (Gal_3:2-3) I read this in my daily devotional. It got me to thinking, It did not matter what I did there was no way to justify myself. Only through Christ am I justified. OK so we all know about that and agree with that right? Often times I find myself only paying attention to the first part of that verse, but as I looked today I realized something entirely new. No matter how hard I work at it I can come no closer to being like Christ no matter what I do. WHAT!! You say. I know, I thought the same thing. But as I thought on it more and more I realized that yes I am supposed to do what I am commanded to do read God's word, pray, go to church and all that. But to be more like Christ only God can do that in my life, he will make the change, I cannot. So to bring this to a close, I am commanded to do certain things and leave the rest up to God. I need to get out of my own way and let God take over.

Love all of you in Christ

Back To School

2012-01-03T19:55:00.001-08:00

First day back after Christmas break. The kiddos were a little wild today, but all in all it was a good day. I love teaching.

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T23:21:00.000-08:00

The new year has begun, and I am truly excited to see what this year brings. At church this morning our pastor memorized the entire sermon on the mount. It was pretty amazing to me. But it also got me to thinking about my life and my dedication to the Lord. I began thinking am I living the way Jesus would have me to. I know that Jesus is my savior and have accepted him, but do I let him have complete control of my life. Or do I try to hold on and keep control of parts of it. I found that depending on the situation I often would say hang on I think I can handle this without you,, and those are generally the times I mess up or things just do not go right. I made a commitment this morning to work on allowing Jesus to take complete control of my life.

The New Year

2011-12-31T12:45:00.000-08:00

Okay, So I have not posted in over a year. Charity tells me that I need to start posting again. This new year will be bringing lots of new experiences and joys. I will be once again adding cooking posts along with other things that I hope you find interesting and pleasing. So until the new year begins tomorrow, I hope that God blesses you as much as he has blessed me.

Good evening

2010-04-12T16:42:00.000-07:00

Good evening all, tonight we had a 4oz grilled ribeye (mmmmmmm!!!!!!) a nibbler ear of corn, green beans and of course a salad. For my daily hour of activity, I went out and worked in the yard and garden for an hour.

Lunch time

2010-04-12T10:31:00.001-07:00

Its lunch time and I am at school today. I had my usual lunch of a turkey wrap, 13 chips and a carrot. I still can't get over the fact that I feel so full.

Good monday morning all

2010-04-12T05:07:00.000-07:00

Good monday morning all. Its time for breakfast and I will have 2 of my "Egg Cupkakes". I will post the recipe later and calorie content for these. Anyway everyone have a great and wonderfully blessed day.

Sunday Supper

2010-04-11T19:26:00.000-07:00

Tonight we had seared chicken breast(4 oz), roasted sliced sweet potatoes, black eyed peas and of course we started with a great salad.

What am I doing?

2010-04-11T19:14:00.000-07:00

I have had some questions about what kind of plan are we following so I am going to post our daily meals here, We are not following a specific plan. I am kind of making it up as I go. I have always had a problem with dieting because I was always hungry after every meal and every plan I have ever tried never worked for long. So what I have done is just find foods that I like and that taste good to me and am working around that. The one thing I really realized is when I went to the grocery store Saturday is that I was eating 4 portions of meat at each meal. Well 4 portions adds up to about 800 to 1200 calories. Ok so I have to cut back on the meat that I eat so what do I replace it with that was the hard part. I had to find something that would make me feel full and yet not add the calories. We start every meal with a salad with a light dressing(my new favorite is sun dried tomatoe vinagrette) and for the meal we have at least 2 vegetables. But we do not mix starches like we do not have corn and potatoes. One thing that also helps me is not eating alot of bread. Bread adds weight and it does it fast. Adding fiber to my diet has really helped me to fell full and for longer. I also eat fruit as a snack. I have not began to exercise yet I am going to add one thing at a time. I will begin an exercise program this week. I have found in the past that if I try to do it all at once I always fail. This time I have decided to start slow and work up to a lifestyle that I want to live. If you have any questions feel free to ask, I will do my best to answer them as best as I can.

Sunday Morning weigh in.

2010-04-11T04:12:00.000-07:00

On monday April 6th, I decided to change the way I eat and live. For the past 6 days I have watched what I ate and made sure it was the proper serving size. I also addded lots of fruits and vegetables. The results are obvious on Monday morning when I weighed I was 240 lbs. This morning I weighed in and the results are I have lost 9 lbs. WOHOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Good morning at church. Just ate my usual lunch of a Turkey wrap, 13 chips and a caorrot best thing is it had 28 grams of fiber which is really great for you and fills you up.

Tonights Menu

2010-04-10T19:41:00.000-07:00

We had a simple supper tonight Grilled Pork Chops, Green Beans and a Baked Potato. So far since Monday I have lost 6 pounds. The Pork chop was a serving of 4 oz. grilled with Kickin' Chicken spice, green beans w light salt and black pepper, Small baked potato w/ 1 tsp Lite Sour Cream and 1/2 oz shredded cheese. Weigh in time is tommorrow morning, hopefully keep the numbers going down.

Chicken Cucuzzi with Tomato Sauce

2010-04-09T20:01:00.000-07:00

click on video below for recipe and instructions
Charity came up with the name for this invention. She really loved it. We figured up the calories and there is only 510 per serving. If you only have a half serving of pasta it would be 400 calories.

Chocolate covered strawberries

2010-04-06T06:45:00.000-07:00

OK, I know its been a while since I uploaded the last video, but school has kaept me really busy the last couple of weeks. This has to be the easiest desert/treat to make.

Carrot Baby Food

2010-03-22T12:37:00.000-07:00

Carrot Baby Food. This is so easy and only cost me $1.50 to make. It saves over $15 per week for me to make our baby food.

2010-03-20T16:03:00.000-07:00

Here are my sandwich rolls. I hope you enjoy these as much as we do.

Mike's Famous Enchiladas

2010-03-20T09:07:00.000-07:00

I have yet to find anybody who does not love these enchiladas. Everyone who has had them has always asked me for the recipe so here it is.

What do you want next?

2010-03-15T15:58:00.000-07:00

Do you want me to cook Italian, Mexican, or just good home cookin' ? Just let me know any suggestions.

2010-03-15T14:48:00.000-07:00

The sweet potato baby food is now in video form. Hopefully this will be easier to view. Any requests or suggestions please feel free to let me know.

Baby

2010-02-09T11:47:00.001-08:00

We had a baby in Sept. She has been such a wonderful blessing.