Generational Healing

We always go to John's mom's house every Sunday for the family rosary...along with his other intown siblings. At the end of the rosary, chaplet & intentions, we say the following prayer. After the prayer, I have included one of todays readings, which makes me question if there is such a thing as generational sin. Hmmmmm.

PRAYER FOR HEALING THE FAMILY TREE
Rev. John H. Hampch, CMF

Heavenly Father, I come before you as your child, in great need of your help. I have physical health needs, emotional needs, spiritual needs,and interpersonal needs. Many of my problems have been caused by my ownfailures, neglect and sinfulness, for which I humbly beg your forgiveness, Lord. But, I also ask you to forgive the sins of my ancestors whose failures have left their effects on me in the form of unwanted tendencies, behavior patterns and defects in body, mind and spirit. Heal me, Lord, of all these disorders.

With your help I sincerely forgive everyone, especially living or dead members of my family tree, who have directly offended me or my loved ones in any way, or those whose sins have resulted in our present sufferings and disorders. In the name of your divine Son, Jesus, and in the power of His Holy Spirit, I ask you, Father, to deliver me and my entire family tree from the influence of the evil one. Free all living and dead members of my family tree, including those in adoptive relationships, and those in extended family relationships, from every contaminating form of bondage. By Your loving concern for us, heavenly Father, and by the shedblood of your Precious Son Jesus. I beg you to extend your blessing to me and all my living and deceased relatives. Heal every negative effect transmitted through all past generations, and prevent such negative effects in future generations of my family tree. I symbolically place the cross of Jesus over the head of each person in my family tree, and between each generation. I ask you to let the cleansing blood of Jesus purify the blood lines in my family lineage. Set your protective angels to encamp around us, and permit Archangel Raphael, the patron of healing, to administer your divine healing power to all of us, even in areas of genetic disability. Give special power to our family members' guardian angels to heal, protect, guide and encourage each of us in all our needs. Let your healing power be released at this very moment, and let it continue as long as your sovereignty permits. In our family tree, Lord, replace all bondage with a holy bonding in family love. And let there be an ever deeper bonding with You, Lord, by the Holy Spirit, to your Son Jesus. Let the family of the Holy Trinity pervade our family with its tender, warm, loving presence, so that our family may recognize and manifest that love in all our relationships. All of our unknown needs we include with this petition that we pray in Jesus' precious Name. Amen.

Book of Ezekiel 18,1-10.13.30-32.

Thus the word of the LORD came to me: Son of man, what is the meaning of this proverb that you recite in the land of Israel: "Fathers have eaten green grapes, thus their children's teeth are on edge"? As I live, says the Lord GOD: I swear that there shall no longer be anyone among you who will repeat this proverb in Israel. For all lives are mine; the life of the father is like the life of the son, both are mine; only the one who sins shall die. If a man is virtuous--if he does what is right and just, if he does not eat on the mountains, nor raise his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel; if he does not defile his neighbor's wife, nor have relations with a woman in her menstrual period; if he oppresses no one, gives back the pledge received for a debt, commits no robbery; if he gives food to the hungry and clothes the naked; if he does not lend at interest nor exact usury; if he holds off from evildoing, judges fairly between a man and his opponent; if he lives by my statutes and is careful to observe my ordinances, that man is virtuous--he shall surely live, says the Lord GOD. But if he begets a son who is a thief, a murderer, or who does any of these things lends at interest and exacts usury--this son certainly shall not live. Because he practiced all these abominations, he shall surely die; his death shall be his own fault. Therefore I will judge you, house of Israel, each one according to his ways, says the Lord GOD. Turn and be converted from all your crimes, that they may be no cause of guilt for you. Cast away from you all the crimes you have committed, and make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. Why should you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies, says the Lord GOD. Return and live!

Gardener's Helper

I have discovered a wonderful site called Daves Garden that lets you keep a blog and a journal about gardening. The journal is basically a database of all your plants and a record of what you are doing with them, etc. It has more plant files and information on plants, sellers and buyers and traders and other gardeners than you could ever use. It is awesome and where I have been spending most of my time the last few months...of blogging that is. Not that I ever did too much of it anyway. My title will link you there, have fun!

God is so Good

Well a lot has happened financially, physically & spiritually since my last post.

Financially:
We have been barely making it with our 28% pay cut, but are perfectly content with that, because for about a month we thought John was going to be without a job all together. We qualified for Hawk-i health for our kids' health insurance, and I keep discovering new ways to save money. I will say that the online survey taking thing is a complete waste of time. I tried it for about 1 month and I made a total of about $20 woopie!

Physically:
I went in to the doctor's when I was sick and they found an enlarged thryroid, so I have had sonograms, radioactive iodine scans, thyroid function tests, calcitonin levels checked and needle biopsies taken. I am waiting for the needle biopsy results, which I find out tomorrow, but I think all is going to be fine. My brother Rex has Medullary Thyroid cancer and it is 50% chance siblings and children would have it, so I was a little scared, but all results that I have back so far are normal.

Spiritually:
Through the trials and tribulations I have grown to trust in God more than ever. John lost his brother Kevin in January, so this has been a real struggle for him also. I received the following prayer in an email the other day. Of course with my OCD tendencies I had to totally rearrange it so that like sentences were grouped together and I had to correct the grammar, but what it had to say was awesome for what I needed. It gave me total peace after reading it, and within a few hours we were given the great news that John would keep his job.

Dear Lord,
I thank You for this day. I thank You for my being able to see and to hear this morning. I'm blessed because You are a forgiving God and an understanding God. You have done so much for me and You keep on blessing me. Help me to start this day with a new attitude and plenty of gratitude. Let me make the best of each and every day to clear my mind so that I can hear from You. Please broaden my mind that I can accept all things. Let me not whine and whimper over things I have no control over. And give the best response when I'm pushed beyond my limits. Please keep me safe from all danger and harm.

I pray for those that are lost and can't find their way. I pray for those that are misjudged and misunderstood. I pray for those who don't know You intimately. I pray for those that don't believe. I pray for all my sisters and brothers, for each and every family member in their households. I pray for peace, love and joy in their homes that they are out of debt and all their needs are met.

Forgive me this day for everything I have done, said or thought that was not pleasing to you.

God I love you and I need you, come into my heart, please. I know that when I can't pray, You listen to my heart. Continue to use me to do Your will. Continue to bless me that I may be a blessing to others. Keep me strong that I may help the weak. Keep me uplifted that I may have words of encouragement for others.

I thank you for my belief and trust in you. Every battle is in Your hands for You to fight.

Amen

Making Money, Squeezing Money & Thanking God

Is there really anything out there that isn't a scam? I have been trying the survey thing. Most legitimate survey sites will tell you that you are not going to get rich doing surveys through them, which is true, because when you actually qualify to do one of their surveys, which seems to be never, they are only worth a buck or two at most. If you are not making money you are earning points towards money or prizes. And most of the time you just get entered into a daily, weekly or monthly prize drawing. Most surveys are scams to get you to buy something or join survey sites that you already belong to. And then you have the survey club sites that say they have researched all the sites on the internet and they know the top 25 sites that can make you money, and most of them you already belong to anyway. I decided I would try this survey taking thing for a month and see if anything pans out. I will let you know.

More bad news: Our health insurance is going way up! The claims filed, where my husband works, went up over 230%, so I can't blame the insurance company for increasing the cost. We researched around and because we have so many kids we are eligible for something called Hawk-I Insurance, which is a health insurance for kids in Iowa for lower income families. I've not really considered our salary on the low end, but with this many kids I guess it really is. We finally sat down and actually figured our budget with the new paycut. It is going to be extremely tight, with no room for junk food, prepackaged foods, going out or emergencies, but I think we will survive. My sister from FL, Dawn, was all over that and can't wait to send junk food up to the kids for Christmas!

I am very thankful to God. I know everything happens for a reason, but sometimes we don't find out until later what those reasons are, but it is my goal not to fail the test. I am thankful that my kids are appreciative and grateful and will be even more so now with the cut backs. I am thankful that my husband has a great job and makes great money still. I am thankful that he has a friend in need that he can help and make some extra money doing so. I am thankful that keeping things tight keeps me closer to God. I rely on Him so much more now than I did two weeks ago. I know I can't do it without Him. I know he will not give me more than I can handle. And I trust in Him and His Word. I give Him all my burdens and let him worry about them so I can relax and do my job.

Speaking of my job, I have math and phonics to do with two of my children.

Frugal Findings

Before I go into all my findings, I should say how I got into this predicament in the first place. It was easy, my husband and I were spending more than we made. So to help rectify the situation I went to our Wellsfargo account and they have this wonderful thing called "My Spending Report" which breaks down all of your spending. We discovered (like we didn't know it already) that we were spending over $500 a month in restaurants, amongst other things. So, we were both put on a cash basis. I was given $1,000 a month for groceries...which includes household items also, remember I am shopping for a family of 9. Well we succeeded, actually went out to eat a little bit and still had around $500 a month left over. That was great! We were going to be able to get out of the hole very easily. Well, that is until this week when we were told that starting November 1st we were losing 28% of our income! Yikes

I know $1,000 a month is a very comfortable number for me, so I went online to research to see what I can do to reduce that number as much as I can. Like I said in the last post, I haven't learned too much that I didn't already know, but it is nice to refresh your memory and to get reinspired to be frugal. The following information is not just for grocery shopping, and remember this is the stuff I found on line, I am not telling you to do any of it. This information you use at your own risk...this is a cya statement.

Finances:

• You have to know what is coming in and going out, and where it is going, too. If you do on-line banking they may have a spending report. Use it, or something like Quicken to figure out what is going on with your money.
• To pay off bills there is something called the snowball effect, which sounds amazing. You don't worry about interest rates, but look at the smallest bill. Pay your minimum on all the bills but the smallest. Put as much money as you can on the smallest bill, keep doing that until it is paid off. Then put all that money, plus what you were paying on the next smallest bill, towards it. Do that until that bill is paid off. Then take that amount of money and add it to the next bill, etc. Keep doing this until your bills are paid off.
• Now that your bills are paid off, you think you have that extra money each month? NO! You take what you were paying to your bills and put it into savings until you have enough to live on for 6 months should something happen to your job.
• Now can you spend? No, you need to start investing your money, increasing your retiremnt accounts, and when that is done, invest in income earning assets, to bring you to financial freedom. This is where my husband can take over.
• Most sites recommend not to use credit cards. They all agree you need one for car and other emergencies. If you have a debit card that can be used to earn points if you use it as a credit card, then I would use it as a credit card every time you make a purchase. That is what we do, and at the end of the year we have $300-500 in store gift cards to use for Christmas shopping.
• Remember you cannot be accruing debt during all of this. You are actually supposed to try and increase your income through bettering yourself and your skills so that you are in better positions for raises. Also, you can "clean house" and instead of having a garage sale, sell it on line....actually you can go to other peoples garage sales and auctions and get things cheap to sell for a profit online.

Reduce Temptation:

• No more shopping for pleasure or because you're bored! Only shop when it is necessary and when you have a list. The only time you are allowed to deviate from the list is, if something you usually buy is on major sale and you can stock up on it. And of course shop on a full stomach.
• Toss all the catalogs that come in the mail...without looking at them first.

Groceries:

• Plan your meals; there are many frugal recipes online. Don't shop without a list
• Make more things from scratch: soups, casseroles, cookies, breads, snacks, etc.
• Do without junkfood and processed foods. They are more expensive and very unhealthy. There is an allowable amount of most kinds of fats that you can have, except for Trans Fat, it should be zero! Unfortunately, companies can label their items zero trans fat if they have less than one gram of trans fat. To be safe, read the ingredients label, if it says shortening, hydrogenated oil or partially hydrogenated oil, then the product is unsafe and you shouldn't buy it, period! Animal lards and tallow are okay. They aren't the healthiest, but are a much better alternative to trans fats.
• Go back to the staples and fresh foods.
• Use less meat and more filler: The kind you put in the meat to make it go further like textured vegetable protein and bread crumbs, etc., and other options on the table like vegetables, potatoes, rice, noodles, and bread.
• Start doing once a month cooking or when you make something, make enough for two meals and freeze one.
• Buy in bulk, but you need to be careful and bring your calculator, because many times I find it is cheaper to buy more of the smaller size than to buy the larger size or in bulk. Sometimes discount food stores such as Aldi or Save-a-lot will be cheaper to buy in regular sizes, than to buy in bulk at a warehouse type store. This is key when storage space is at a premium. So, be careful when buying in bulk.

Laundry/Clothing:

• Don't wash clothes, especially jeans, unless they are visibly dirty or stinky. Hang things up after you wear them. Washing too often wears out your clothes quicker, plus you are using more water, soap, fabric softner/dryer sheets and electricity than you need to.
• Only do full loads of laundry, and use the smallest amount of product necessary to do the job.
• Stain Remover Recipe: 1 part Wisk liquid laundry soap, 1 part Dawn dishwashing liquid, and 1 part vinegar. Put into a squeeze bottle and use on stains.
• Shop at consignment shops and/or second hand shops...like Goodwill. Never pay full price.

Household:

• Depending on how your garbage works, you can save money by recycling and using a trash compactor. Before we moved to our house with a trash compactor we used 3-4 garbage cans each week. After we moved we were down to one can. Now that I recycle, we are basically down to one to two compactor bags every week depending on whats going on and the time of year.
• Of course you should turn off all lights when you leave a room, and if you are a Myth Busters watcher, you know that they busted the myth about it's cheaper to leave a flourescent bulb on than turn it off and on again. Also, you are supposed to switch to flourescent bulbs, which use to be a big turn off for me, because it was never bright enough, but now they make those "day light" bulbs that have the white/blue light instead of yellow, and they are awesome!
• Don't leave your water running: when brushing teeth, when washing/rinsing dishes, and some will go so far as during washing in the shower...I'll leave that up to you.
• Don't be wasteful. Don't use 5 paper towels when you could get by with 1-2...or better yet use cloth napkins, rags, washcloths, dishtowels, to do all the work and you won't have to buy paper towels at all; and while your at it you can stop buying paper plates, too. I refuse to tell you to use less toilet paper!

Well, most of this is probably obvious to anyone who has been at it a while, being frugal that is. Hopefully, you have found something useful in my meandering.

Penny Pinching

Due to some financial changes at our house, I have spent the passed week searching the web on how to be frugal. I read the Tightwad Gazzet years ago, so I haven't learned too much that I didn't already know. But, boy there are thousands of people wanting you take surveys. You can tell the scams from the real deal, just in their website design: some are very professional and some look like they came from the used car sales person. I can't believe people really fall for all of that! I will let you know some of the results I came up with in all my research in my next entry.