When discussing with Brett what my main focus for this blog should be he suggested a blog about green smoothies or skin care.  Just for fun, I will share what little I know about both!

Green Smoothies:  I first started drinking green smoothies about six years ago.  I drank them almost daily about a year ago when I just got tired of them and have switched exclusively to juicing for breakfast.  I occasionally throw in a green smoothie, but they are much different than they used to be.  I used to make green smoothies with many ingredients.  And I would make myself drink them even if they tasted awful.  The awful tasting ones had way too much kale or arugula.  I usually put in several different kinds of fruit, greens and some nuts or seeds.  Now when I make my smoothies I put in one kind of fruit and one kind of green add a little water and blend.  These smoothies taste much better and are easier to drink and not so heavy as the ones where I insisted on adding what I have now discovered was just too many things.

That is pretty much my experience with green smoothies and my recommendation to anyone who wants to start drinking them is just to make them simple.  They taste better and are easier to digest.  A packet or two of stevia can really enhance the flavor as well.  I also recommend starting with lettuce or spinach as two mild tasting greens.  I recommend leaving kale for other people to eat!  Just kidding.  Kale’s strong taste is best covered by bananas in my opinion.

Skin Care:  Where to start?!  I looked like a teenager well into my 30’s.  In fact, when I was 40 and pregnant with Aspen, I took my 20-year-old daughter with me clothes shopping.  Several times when I checked out the clerk asked if this was my first baby.  I always said, “No, this is my last.”  And then I would point to my daughter next to me and say, “This was my first.”  Now that I think about it I got that question quite often from store clerks.

Needless to say I didn’t give good skin care a whole lot of thought until I hit about 45 and things started to head south.  Not to be out done by old age I researched what I could do on a budget to slow down the aging process.  I have discovered facial exercise to be immensely helpful in restoring the muscles of the face to their proper places.  To be specific I have tried three facial exercise programs and use parts of all three of them.  “FlexEffect” is a great comprehensive program that works all of the facial muscles as well as including bone massage to keep the facial bones from losing their original shape.  “Ageless if You Dare” is most effective for the cheek muscles.  I had already faithfully been using the FlexEffect program and enjoying the results when I started the “Agless if You Dare” program and was surprised how quickly my cheek muscles responded.  Also the neck exercise worked very quickly.  “Facercise” was the first facial exercise program I tried.  I like it and occasionally use some of the lower face exercises to enhance the effects of the above two programs.

If you are interested in facial exercise, you just need to try various things and see what works for you.  I have played around with facial exercise for a couple of years now so I am beginning to see how the various exercises affect my facial muscles.

A quick five-minute facial massage called “Tanaka” can be found on YouTube.  It is a lymphatic drainage massage and creates a small instant lift.  My daughter, who is 26 and writes a food blog, occasionally posts pictures of herself with her newest creations.  She has told me that she does not do a photo shoot without first doing Tanaka massage!

I hope you have found the above information useful and helpful and may your New Year be healthy and beautiful.

Brett and I decided to be host parents to two Chinese boys attending school here for second semester.  Boy number one arrived with his mother a few days ago.  Tonight we met them at their hotel and went to dinner with them at The Cracker Barrel.  They did not speak a lot of English, but enough that we carried on a good conversation with them and learned many things about China.

The mom apologized for her stuttering English.  I told her I had taken a year of Spanish class once and after the year was over I could understand quite a bit, read Spanish pretty good, but I could hardly get a word out.

Have you ever felt that way when it comes to God or witnessing?  Initially, when you learn a new language, there is a lot of listening to others who use that language and trying to understand what they say.   That can be true about spiritual things as well.  Religious talk has its own vocabulary.  Early on I think people listen to what Christians say and try to understand it.  It takes a bit to catch on to all the catch phrases.

Then you start reading, and though it can be hard at first to understand, the more you read and study the Bible, the deeper your understanding grows.  There comes a point where you can clearly understand “Christianese” language and read the Bible and religious books with understanding.

However, when it comes to speaking or talking about Jesus, many of us seem to struggle and stutter like our new friend from China does with English.  I believe what is true for her is true for us as well.  Her English will get better and better the more she practices using English and submerges herself in English culture.  We, too, will get better and better with, not only understanding of Christianity, but also our ability to talk openly about Jesus.  By the way, it’s OK if you start out stuttering, Moses stuttered–a lot–and God used him to part the Red Sea.  So go ahead and stutter if need be, just don’t give up talking about Jesus.  Who knows what oceans God has for you to part and lead people to Him.