Juice Shenanigans & Ballyhoo.

For the love of Joe the Juice Man. I am cry laughing.
Shenanigans and Ballyhoo. That is what has gone on here this morning. Shenanigans and Ballyhoo.

Such a high level of shenanigans that I am typing this post on a PC that has reached the age hip replacement. The homeschoolers felt like their math took precedence over my post. Whatever.

I was late on making my juice for the day. As I got started, I was so bummed I hadn't done it earlier because it looked so pretty and earthy.

My grocery was out of fresh kale so I had to make do last night. Spouse and I bought 3 bags of this jazz. Never again. It was much more expensive than the fresh and was a dadgum hassle putting it in the juicer. Crumbling up all over the place. Falling out of the chute. My assistant juicer, Maddy, and I were dying laughing about how ridiculous it was. Meghan left the room cause cackling was disturbing her studies....

Then, one whole entire pound of kale produced this much juice:

 So ridiculous! All we could do was laugh. I had to juice all three pounds just to get a spittles worth of juice. This has tripled the amount of normal juice time, by the way.

My struggle with juicing is the waste of the pulp. I hate it. We don't have a garden or any way to compost and we end up with a lot of wasted pulp in the garbage disposal. Spouse doesn't like me putting it in the disposal, but I don't like it in the trash cause I don't want stink.

Then, this:

The last freakin bag of horrid bagged kale. Clogging up the disposal and just sitting in my sink mocking me. You got a spittles worth of juice out of me and now I shall clog your drain! 

I'm running around the house like Sweet Brown, "Lord Jesus it's a clawg! Where's the plunger?!" Then, naturally, this is a semi-emergency so I nearly peed my pants. I was dying. It's what I do. Some people ugly-cry. I pee-laugh. Who am I kidding? I do both.

So to screw it all, I left it. The plunger didn't work.  I hit the reset button on the disposal and all that jazz. I scooped out what I could and put it in the trash. I vacuumed the floor of kale bits and left it just like this:

 I took my juice and grabbed this decrepit computer and gave you shenanigans and ballyhoo.

You may return to your own shenanigans. May you be free of the ballyhoo today.

Straight Talk About The Talk- Part 1

Today, I had the opportunity to speak to a group of parents at my church about talking to their kids about their sexual purity. Naturally, it led to the updating and reposting of this blog from last summer. In true Melissa fashion, I added a lot, leading me to break it up into installments. It looks like there will be 4. Unless I add more. :)

In the least self-promoting way, because I believe in the message, I hope these become the most shared posts of all the Spouseisms posts.
Preparing our kids for a fulfilling, monogamous marriage is the ultimate Spouseism. :)

______________________________________________________________

Parents, Pre-Parents, Educators,

Let's talk about sex. :) (My blog hits just went from 5 to 10 just like that!)

It's time for a little straight talk about The Talk. 

It has to be done. And, as the 'Rents, you are the ones to do it. This business of expecting the I promise, there is no need to worry yourself to the point of hives, nor is there cause to bury your head in the proverbial sand! You can do this! There is, however, cause for you to take seriously the need to talk early and talk often with your kids about sex and the importance of saving all sexual activity until marriage.

Talk to God - Pray. Pray for your child's purity. Pray for what your child is exposed to outside of your presence. Pray that those you entrust with your kids would protect them from exposure to harmful media images. Pray that he would be blinded by images that are preying on him. Pray for your child to see herself the way God sees her, a precious gift, purposed in this world to change the world. Pray for your child's future spouse. A really smart momma told me that she always prayed that her children's hearts would be asleep until God had the person to wake it up. Is that precious?!
Pray for these things with your child/teen. 

Bonus: It changes your relationship. Really. They see into your heart and truly believe that you don't want what's good for them, you want what God has for them.

Talk Early - With the Littles, use correct anatomical terms. Penis and vagina are not dirty words. Honestly, it's cute to hear a toddler say vagina. Mine said "sagina" and it was the best! You need to be comfortable saying these words and so do your children.
I explained it to my girls this way: pee-pee/penis or pee-pee/vagina are similar to sofa and couch. They mean the same thing. I gave several examples: chair/recliner, bike/bicycle...you get the idea. Children are not squeamish about saying a word like 'vagina' until they learn to be. Really, it's not a big deal--head, shoulders, knees, toes, penis. It's all about learning their 2000 'fearfully and wonderfully made' parts!

Talk Often - Talking about sex with your child is not a one-time deal. Use teachable moments. Media gives us plenty! Here's the deal, your kids WILL get a sex education. They can get it from NBC, government school, a Kardashian (Lord forbid it), the cool cousin, church, or YOU. I can not say this to enough Mommas: The first person to talk to your child about sex is the expert--Be the expert! 

I'm not saying oversaturate your kid with inappropriate sexual conversation, I'm just saying don't let the moments pass you by and don't wait for some special dinner. Just be casual. Never let 'em see you sweat.
You end up repeating some things and that's okay. Each time, new areas of conversation will come up. And, more details will come up. Don't wait for them to ask questions. By the time the questions come, they've been brewing. Stay ahead of 'em if you can.

I'd love to hear your stories and ideas. Let's help each other out here!
Do you use correct anatomical words in your house? Is this a subject area that causes you angst?

Upcoming Installments: Talk Privacy, Purity, Marriage, Goals, Consequences, Media. :)

Wheezin' the Juice is hard.

Spouse thought it would be a good idea for the girls to make a documentary of my little faith and veggie journey here, but they don't seem to keen on the idea, so I'm journalling it. And, since a lot of my journalling is out there for all 5 of y'all, you can keep up, too.
Maybe I'll post a vlog or something, I don't know.

Also, the disclaimer is the same:  
I'm not a doctor.

I'm not a nurse or medical professional of any kind. I'm not a nutritionist.

I am not even a reliable source of celebrity gossip.

I'll just tell you now that there may be a sentence fragment or nine. If I do not make sense, don't feel like it's a cipher, just ask. I don't want you decoding anything. This should be informative and inspiring, right? Also, some of it I write in real time, and some is not. Ignore any and all tenses that do not agree, please. I'll try to keep it straight, but ya know...

Here's a little backstory. (In case you missed it.)

Monday, May 13, 2013

Today, we made the decision to hold off on treatment for a while and redo the body scan in 4-6 months.
Then, like geniuses whose god is in our stomachs, we went to Gringo's.
I had chips, salsa, a fajita, and 3 glasses of Diet Coke. Poison.

Came home and read from my book about how all that is food for cancer. Awesome. Jesus, kill it.

We resolved to do the thing. All of us. Eat mostly cancer-fighting foods (vegetables, fruit) and starve the cancer of its food (sugar, animal products). I need all the iodine I can get, so I'll do fish. (I'm certain that the occasional Chick-Fil-A has to be okay cause it's the Christian Chicken. Annointed.)
I'm kidding.
Not really.

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

God is amazing. I prayed and others prayed that my withdrawals from aspartame and sugar would be absent and that this transition would be more pleasant. Today, I had no headache or fatigue. Now, to be clear. God did give me several hours at the pool with beautiful sun. Now that I think about it, I don't think I've ever experienced headache at the pool. Hmmm...
I wasn't super tired during the day (again, sun), but I fell asleep on the couch watching Fat, Sick, & Nearly Dead for the fourth time for inspiration. :) (Netflix it.)

Also, my people, near and far, are the best cheerleaders ever. Texting, calling, and getting on board with me in the most tangible ways. So cool and so very motivating. All Jesus people.

I am supposed to be eating about a pound a day of vegetables and a pound a day of fruit. I just can't do that. It's so much. So, I'm juicing, which I already like and have a little experience with.

There are so many conflicting ideas about how to eat. Paleo is best for optimum health, straight vegetables for cancer fighters, fruit, no fruit.
Here's where we are with it: I need a full on detox. No doubt.  Cut sugar, Diet Coke (!), and drastically reduce meat, if not cut it all together. I also know that I need seafood. With Follicular Thyroid Cancer, iodine is key.

Spouse and I started shopping for a new juicer. It's hard. They all do different things and have different features. Bless.

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

6:26am- Woke up with head feeling full. Uh-oh. "Jesus, I know I did this to myself, but please do today  what you did yesterday."

7am- Full on headache. This is one that, normally, I can feel is going to become migraine-ish. I'm throwing back water. Also, I text about 14 Jesus girls. :) Enlist an army.
The prayers are so sincere and so specific. Overwhelmed and teary. So precious.

9:15am- Dude. I'm dying. I've drank a juice and a half and I feel sick.

10:00am- My brain feels like it's going to pop out of my eyes and ears. Turned on a documentary for the Little Sister (Big Sister is doing internship).

Got sick. Violently. I texted Spouse in the midst of the episode, somehow. I knew it was detox,  although I hadn't heard of vomiting being a part of it. I was wondering, Why the crap am I throwing up good stuff? 

I went back and forth from the couch to the bathroom for I don't know how long. At some point, I texted my girls again to ask for urgent prayer. Amazing. Spouse came home and worked the rest of the day from home.

I was knocking on heaven's door, dude. I knew that a Diet Coke and ibuprofen would stop all the pain.

Finally, I was able to fall asleep. I slept off and on for a few hours and about 4:30pm woke up to this:

Actually, there were about 17, but it didn't occur to me until a few minutes later to screen shot it. These are texted prayers to Jesus on my behalf that I got to see. Gracious. I woke up feeling a great deal better. I even went to swim practice and verbally vomited on some sweet swim moms. Bless em.

Thursday, May 16, 2013

I am praying the worst of it is over. I feel reasonable this morning.

I wish I could say that the horrid experience left me saying that I would never have another Diet Coke again. I still want one. I'm not going to get one, but I want one.

The sun is shining again today. I'll be taking this school to the pool later.
That helps.

I won't always put all the gory details out there, but somebody is going to feel this stuff and will hopefully need to know that he or she will, in fact live through it.

Plus, it increases the intensity and frequency of your prayers.

Praying it gone.