I have had a pretty bummy week this past week, and yesterday was just awful.  Nothing in particular – just one of those “down” days in general.  This Psalm ministered to me this morning:

 PSALM 42

As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for You, O God.  My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.  When shall I come and appear before God?  My tears have been my food day and night, while they continually say to me, “Where is your God?”

When I remember these things, I pour out my soul within me.  For I used to go out with the multitudes; I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept a pilgrim feast.

Why are you cast down, O my soul?  And why are you disquieted within me?  Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance.

O my God, my soul is cast down within me; therefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan, and from the heights of Hermon, from the Hill Mizar.  Deep calls unto deep at the noise of Your waterfalls; all Your waves and billows have gone over me.  YHWH will command His lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night His song shall be with me – a prayer to the God of my life.

I will say to God my rock, “Why have You forgotten me?  Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?”  As with a breaking of my bones, my enemies reproach me, while they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”

Why are you cast down, O my soul?  And why are you disquieted within me?  Hope in God; for I shall yet praise Him, the help of my countenance and my God.

Filed under: Spiritual Journal by Rachel
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As noted in my last post, my shower still looked like this after several weeks of using the Scrubbing Bubbles Automatic Shower Cleaner:

Clearly, it’s still quite dirty. When I have tried to clean it before, with regular bathroom cleaners, it has been awful to clean. I have been known to scrub it for literally hours, and have it not look much better than this when I’m done. Not exactly tremendous motivation to bother with it! Then I tried Kaboom. Now, I am not a big fan of harsh cleansers, but it seems to take harsh cleansers to deal with rust we have in the water around here. Kaboom contains some harsh acids, but they are at least natural acids. It works beautifully, too, with hardly any scrubbing. Just to demonstrate, I sprayed Kaboom on one small section of the shower and wiped it – just wiped it – once with a rag:

See the difference?! Then I sprayed the rest of the shower.

After letting it sit for a couple of minutes to do its thing, I cleaned it off. Now, I do some minimal “scrubbing” here. This is not major elbow grease. This is a minor going-over with a cleaning brush, to loosen up whatever the cleanser has dissolved. Then I rinsed it off.

This is already a huge difference. There is still some residue in the yuckiest parts of the shower, though…

…so I sprayed them one more time, let it sit for a few minutes, and scrubbed/rinsed off again:

If you look closely, you will see that this is not perfect. There is still some minor rust on the surfaces. But I did no real scrubbing, and it only took a few minutes to get this from a shower that looked terrible before. If I scrubbed it, or if I started with a less-atrocious shower, I’m sure I could get it looking even better. (The shower curtain in this photo has not been cleaned. I usually just toss it in the laundry with the towels, and that works pretty well – even on the rust, surprisingly. Unfortunately, this time it finally tore, so now we need a new one.)

It looks like Kaboom gets better marks than the Scrubbing Bubbles Automatic Shower Cleaner.

Filed under: Cleaning & Tidying, Product Reviews by Rachel
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My shower is a nightmare to clean. (We have horrible rust in our water.) So, when BzzAgent offered me the opportunity to try out the new Scrubbing Bubbles Automatic Shower Cleaner, I jumped at it. The Shower Cleaner says that it will clean a dirty shower in 2-3 weeks, or maintain a clean one, so I decided to try a two-stage experiment. Stage one was to install the Cleaner in our shower, as-is, and see how well it cleaned it. To begin with, I took pictures of the shower and installed the Cleaner.

(I know, it’s bad. It had been a while since I cleaned it. Did I mention I hate cleaning it? lol)

Then I used the Cleaner as directed until the first bottle was completely empty. (Since the instructions say it lasts for approximately 3 weeks, I figured that should be a fair trial.) When the bottle was completely empty, I took pictures again.

Not much difference.  Here – see the before and after photos side-by-side:

I’m not impressed. Although I guess maybe it kept it from getting worse. (Then I cleaned the shower. But that’s another post.)

Stage two involves beginning with a clean shower and observing how well the Automatic Shower Cleaner maintains it over the life of a bottle of cleaning fluid. I’ll let you know how that works out.

Filed under: Cleaning & Tidying, Product Reviews by Rachel
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Unless you have been hiding under a rock or cut off from technology (which isn’t likely if you’re reading this blog), chances are you’ve heard at least something about the FLDS situation in Texas.  If not, here’s the nutshell version: an anonymous telephone call was made to child protective services, purportedly from a young lady within a compound of the Fundamental Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints.  (I hope I got that name right.  It’s the polygamist sect from which the Mormons apparently broke off.)  She claimed she was being abused.  CPS came in and removed over 400 children from the compound (and their families) and placed them in state custody.  As I understand it, the call has since been alleged false, but the children have not been returned to their homes, because the state-employed psychologist says that their lifestyle (dressing “weird,” avoiding junk food, etc. – we’re not just talking unconventional family structure here) is inherently abusive.

As a parent, I think this is terribly scary, but Brandy has already spelled it all out at least as well as I could, if not better, so I won’t try to do it again; I’ll just direct you to read her blog post on the subject.

If you are concerned about your rights as a parent to raise your children as you believe is best (or concerned about the rights of parents around you), please give serious consideration to supporting a Parental Rights Amendment.  There is a link in my right sidebar that will take you to more information and opportunities to support it in various ways.

Filed under: Babies & Parenting, Politics/Current Events by Rachel
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I have been wrestling with adrenal fatigue since my elder daughter was born.  Although my adrenals have not been completely restored, significant progress has been made.  Some of the suggestions I’ve read throughout the years include:

-B vitamins
-vitamin C
-adaptogens, such as rhodiola
-adrenal “glandular” (dessicated adrenal gland – usually comes from cows, I think)
-amino acids (to help the body rebuild, without the added stress of breaking down proteins into amino acids first)
-deep tissue massage therapy
-anything that helps with stress relief
-mild to moderate exercise

I have tried the majority of these, to some degree or another, at some point or another, and they are getting better.  I think, though, that they will improve more fully when I can regain – and maintain – a better weight!

Filed under: Health & Safety, Personal and Blog News by Rachel
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