Lemonade and Ice Cream

Yesterday I made it through the day without having sugar.  If you know me, then I don't need to remind you that I start my mornings with hot chocolate.  I won't reveal how many heapings of Swiss Miss make it into my mug but lets just say that the tin can says it makes over 60 mugs and I've never gotten remotely close to that.  Ever. 

Today I passed on the hot chocolate again and instead made decaf green tea.  Honestly, I wasn't miserable.   In fact, I felt a little better about myself.

Which is why I hate to admit what my day 4 challenge was: make lemonade and ice cream from scratch.   An alternate translation means: sugar, sugar and more sugar.  My friends- this is not a good decision for someone who proclaimed only 24 hours earlier:

I....DO...NOT.....NEED....THIS....MUCH....SUGAR....IN....MY....LIFE!

My friend Leah helped me make the lemonade.  As I was mixing ingredients, she told me about this book she ordered called Why We Get Fat and What to Do About It.   As I dipped my hand into the largest container of sugar (ever), I said "um, maybe this is why we get fat?"

When I was little, my mom use to read me this book called, "How God Gives Us Ice Cream."  It's ridiculous.  God gives us grass, which feeds the cows, who give us milk and I don't know the rest but I remember farmers turning the cream and kids adding sugar.  The last page everyone was enjoying ice cream.  It was a happy book and I always wanted to be one of those kids doing God's work: making ice cream.

So today I set out to do just that.....

I loved making my own ice cream.  It was hard and easy at the same time.  Hard because I couldn't just grab the ice cream I already had in my freezer (with a lot of weird ingredients) but easy because it only required a few ingredients and the machine did most of the hard work.  I saw how much sugar and cream went into the mixture so I was able to curb my gluttony, dish out a dollop and be satisfied.  I realized that too often I eat food that comes in shiny bags.  Companies spend a lot of money putting addicting ingredients, like salt and chemicals I can't pronounce, into this cheap food I didn't make and mindlessly eat with no appreciation. I am not thankful for this food because it came fast and easy and because I ate it too quickly.

Yesterday was about taking a few simple ingredients and making something wonderful: Ice cream and lemonade.   It was a sweet way to end the fourth of July.  We sipped lemonade and ate ice cream while our baby was fast asleep amid sounds of fireworks in the distance.  I can't help but think that every day should be so hard and so simple at the same time.  I should work harder to enjoy the luxury of eating.  I should take God's ingredients and turn them into something wonderful every day instead of letting others take those same ingredients and tarnish them.

I'm reading a book by Jen Hatmaker called 7; An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess.  Today was the first day that didn't feel like excess.  My friend and I took lemons and made lemonade.  My husband and I took cream and sugar and made ice cream.   I think going forward I'm going to start making some food changes.  I want to make eating food harder so that I appreciate it more. 

Happy 4th of July. 

Turning lemons into lemonade!

My husband adding ice!

Ladies and gentlemen- this is the real MK with no make up.  Actually, in every picture on this blog I've been sans make up but this one is a close up.  I'm a bit uncomfortable about it but I want to be real here.  I'm not gonna get gussied up just so you all think I've got it together.  I don't.   I didn't even brush my hair today if I'm really honest.  So i'm not going to explain why I look the way I do in every picture.  This is the disclaimer.  Going forward I won't explain myself.  Got it?  Good. 

Lemonade, ice cream and a messy kitchen....all signs of a great day!