buckle your seat belts.

well, i ordered the supplement i will use for my cleanse. in the words of kevin mcallister, "this is it. don't get scared now." (is home alone not the best movie ever?) i also found a good list of foods considered "clean" so i know what i can eat and what items i can sub for others, like greek yogurt instead of sour cream, unsweetened almond milk instead of half and half in my coffee, etc. wish me luck. guaranteed i will be whining after one day. but it will be good for me.

"no discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it." -hebrews 12:11

i get that this verse probably wasn't intended to encourage weight loss. but, i think it is saying that exercising self-control and restraint, though difficult at the time, can bring about good in many areas of your life.

on a completely unrelated topic, we had an interesting opportunity potentially arise a few days ago... one of my brother-in-law jake's friends called him and said she has friends who will be moving here to minnesota in a few months for a new job in arden hills and are in for the weekend to look at places to live. knowing we are looking, eventually, to rent our townhouse and get a bigger home, jake told her that she should have them come look at our place. so, they came to check out our house yesterday. they hadn't found anything they liked prior to our place and are looking at one other place today. but then they're going back to portland and not coming back to minnesota until they move here in august. they seemed to really like our place, and seemed interested in moving forward. the monthly rental price they'd be willing to pay is right around what our mortgage + homeowners' association fee is each month. kinda seems like a little divine intervention, but it seems like it came 6 months too soon. we haven't saved quite enough yet for a down payment on a new house. we have to take these sorts of things as they come, i know, and take leaps of faith. i trust that if this is the right step for us, God can, and will, provide. He will have to get creative, i guess!

we spoke with a realtor and are going to start taking a look at some houses. assuming that this couple decides they want to rent our place, we are going to be on a bit of a time crunch if we need to be out by august... a little scary, but exciting too. we may be in for quite a ride here in the next few months.