Do it all for the glory of God

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31).

Starting on Friday (maybe Saturday) I will begin the paleo autoimmune diet.  I have wanted to do an elimination diet for a while now.  I have prayed and prepared for months.  Initially I thought I would be doing the GAPS, but thats not the path that was chosen.  My dear friend Kelli is starting an 8 week paleo challenge and I decided to join in the fun!  I am going a step further and cutting out more than the normal paleo diet requires.  I fully believe this is God's will for my life in this moment.  I do hope I will see healing, but if I don't God will still be praised! He has already shown me I must be disciplined in preparing and planning meals.  I am not a planner, so this is a challenge for me!  I have a love/hate relationship with cooking.  Most of the time Alan is pleased with the meals.  The planning, prepping, and cleaning drive my crazy.  I have been praying that God would give me a love for it all!  I want to see it as a form of worship.  I get to cook and provide meals for my family!  That is a huge blessing!  I have been learning new methods of prepping and I spend about three hours a day preparing our dinner.  I have purchased two AMAZING books that have really gotten me excited for the next eight weeks!  "The Autoimmune Protocol," by Mickey Trescott and "Well Fed 2," by Melissa Joulwan.  These women have been so kind and quick to answer questions!  Mickey actually sent me a signed copy of her book!  It is sold out on amazon and I emailed her asking when it would be available. I didn't really expect a reply, but she quickly responded!  I felt honored! Both books are wonderful!  I have tried recipes from each book and we haven't been disappointed!  Alan has told people he will be happy if these are the types of meals he gets for the next eight weeks.  

Last night I read a verse I had never seen before and I want it plastered on my wall!  "Better is a dinner of herbs where love is than a fattened ox and hatred with it" (Proverbs 15:17).  I can get pretty angry when I am cooking and EVERYTHING goes wrong.  When the kitchen ends up in a mess, the food is not excellent, and I wash the same dish five times, I want to scream!  I should have just put some herbs out on the table for us to nibble on!  I want this verse to be a sweet reminder that it is an honor to plan, prepare, and serve my family.  I want to do it with joy and not anger! 

Here is the mess that was my kitchen last night:

This is after the sauce I made went everywhere.  I am still cleaning the sauce from places in my kitchen.  I wish I would have thought to take a picture.  The crock pot has homemade bone broth in it.  Who am I? 

Here is the coconut milk, flower, ranch dip, and No-Mato sauce which I will freeze and pull out on a spaghetti night. I'll have zoodles.

The coconut flour had to bake

The coconut milk exploded out of the blender and this was AFTER the no-mato sauce went flying through the air!  I was surprised at how calm I stayed.  God definitely gets the glory!

I saved the best pictures for last! My little helper decided she wanted to put all her food down her shirt!

Just for Rach

This post is dedicated to my dear friend Rach.  She has been asking me to blog so much lately haha.  I sit down to write and feel like I have NOTHING to write.  There is a BLOCK!  This past weekend Rach and Chris came to visit.  It was such an amazing visit.  She took lots of pictures and they can be found at http://thisitalianfamily.wordpress.com.  I remember when I started blogging.  I'm not certain what I wanted out of it, but the one thing I have received through blogging is some great friends.  I believe I have written about Emily before.  She is just wonderful!  I have a list of bloggers I would like to meet one day.  It is a small list, but I do love these girls.  I love reading blog posts about their lives!  I always think I would like to be more like Jaimee (I hope I spelled your name correctly) and post more about my little girl.  She does a great job capturing moments in the life of her beautiful baby girl!  I don't post enough  and follow only a few blogs, the ones I have named aren't the full list.  I absolutely LOVE the girls and I am tempted to list each of them!  Meeting Rach for the first time last year was amazing and having them stay at the house this past weekend was even more amazing!

So Rach, this is the best I could do today. Ha!  I tried, but this writers block kinda kills writing!  Love you dear friend and I am so thankful we were able to spend the whole weekend with  you and Chris!  Maybe I will begin to post about my new food journey soon!  The Autoimmune Paleo diet I will be beginning this week might kick my butt and I may need an outlet, such as blogging, to get my mind of it!

This picture was stolen borrowed from Rach's blog!  She does a WONDERFUL job taking pictures and just started a new photography business!