At the beginning of this month, I started a Pray Like Mary, Clean Like Martha Facebook Challenge. I had over 300 women participate and help keep each other accountable. It was a great experience and not only does my house look better, but my prayer life has also greatly improved! The challenge was based on the book with the same name written by Sarah Mae. Each day in the book she would give us a story to read, a bible reading, questions to answer, as well as, a cleaning/organizing challenges.

It was a lot of fun, but after a week it got harder to keep up on a daily bases. I will also say the author doesn’t suggest doing it for 31 days straight, but we chose to as part of the New Year’s challenge. Next time I might break it down doing it over two months that way it doesn’t feel as overwhelming at times.

Now I Challenge you to pick up the book and start your own women’s group challenge.

I’ve been making and freezing slower cooker meals for years now, but to give our taste buds something new to try I wanted to change it up. Currently, my 14-month-old LOVES meatloaf, loves it. With him teething so badly it’s still one of the only solid foods that he will eat. It also requires a bit of prep work before even cooking for 45 minutes so I decided to make a triple batch and froze two trays of it for a future dinner. The recipe is easy to make, freezing it and cooking it later will be even easier! Just need to make some mashed potatoes, peas, and brown gravy to serve with it before enjoying. Now that’s some good eats!

Ingredients:

2lb ground beef
1 meatloaf seasoning packet
1 egg
10 saltine crackers, crushed
¼ cup milk
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 can tomato sauce
Salt and pepper to taste
Ketchup (optional)

Directions:
Mixed ground beef, meatloaf seasoning packets, 1 egg, 10 crushed saltine crackers, milk, green bell pepper, onion and half of the can tomato sauce. If desired salt and pepper.
Place in a loaf pan or casserole dish.
Add the other half of tomato sauce and ketchup on top. Spread to cover completely, add more salt and pepper if desired.
Bake 45 minutes at 425 degrees. Remove lid and bake an extra 10 minutes.

​Or Freeze before cooking. To cook thaw overnight and good as normal.

Part of my New Year Goals (I don’t like resolutions, they always seem to be gone before the Christmas decorations are put up) I wanted to add more reading into my life. On Black Friday I bought tons of books and can’t wait to get to read them all. The first one I picked to read was Weightless Making Peace with Your Body by Kate Wicker. As most women at New Year’s I wanted to work on my weight and my health, so I figured this could be a great book to start with.
 
Overall I enjoyed the book; however, the author and I have different problems with our weight. While I am bigger, she suffered from anorexia. Hers was because she wanted to fit in and be seen as pretty during her teenage and college years because she was a bigger girl when she was younger. And well, mine is because I eat my emotions and hide behind my weight.
 
The core point of her book though is what I loved about the book. It Is God made you and He loves you and if you can’t grasp that then nothing will ever change. You can’t love yourself until you accept that God made you and gave you your body. It is a temple to help worship Him. Mistreating it only hurts your relationship with God. This thought wasn’t a new idea to me, but how she specifically broke it down really opened my eyes.
 
What’s also great about the book is that included what she calls soul food which includes inspiring quotes, tools, and tips. There’s also a meditation to think about and each chapter ends with a prayer.
 
I’ve read similar Christian weightless books with the same concept. I think this one reached me a little deeper was because of the authors also being Catholic and you can see that in her writing.
 
If you are struggling with your body, be it weight, wrinkles, or scars you should give this book a try. Oh and its only 83 pages perfect length for busy moms! I have a few other books by this author that I am looking forward to reading soon!