Simplifying Means Changing Your Life: Read Battlefield of the Mind by Joyce Meyer

Simplying life means changing your lifestyle.  Changing the way you live isn't done in a day, and it isn't done successfully without some major internal alterations.

You have to change your attitude.  You have to change what you value.  You have to change the way you think.

For me, that means reading Joyce Meyer's Battlefield of the Mind and then re-reading it periodically.  You can even buy it as an ebook these days (Barnes & Nobles offers this version for $8.99; the paperback is a couple of dollars more, new.)

Yes, this is a Christian book.  Essentially, Joyce Meyer is telling you that the battle for your life is between your ears.  Lessons are provided, founded in Scripture, that teach you how to change the way that you think, to recognize and tear down strongholds in your thinking, to know what thoughts and thought patterns the devil uses to thwart you, and first and foremost, this book teaches you to start thinking about what you're thinking about.  To watch what and how you're thinking.

Using the 40 Years in the Wilderness, Battlefield of the Mind identifies "wilderness mentalities" that can be wrong ways of thinking - and instructs you on how to win the battle of getting those ways of thinking out of your head.

If you're ready for change, then you're ready for the fight.  Go buy Battlefield today.  Get a used copy to save money, but this isn't a book to check out from the library.  You'll want to have this as a life tool, something to take notes in -- something to go back and re-read every so often. 

It's that helpful, it's that good.

Expatriate: Resources for Americans Considering Living Overseas

In honor of Overseas Americans Week, April 19 - 23, here's a list of online resources for those of you who are pondering living at least part of the year in another country besides the U.S.A.:

Association of Americans Resident Overseas

American Citizens Abroad

Association of American Clubs

(U.S.) Department of State

Escape Artist

Expat Finder

Going Global

Overseas Digest

Tales from a Small Planet

And, some expat / relocation overseas resource books to read (listed by oldest to newest publication dates):

New American Expat: Thriving and Surviving Overseas in the Post 9/11 World by William Russell Melton (April 2005)

The Expert Expat - Revised Edition: Your Guide to Successful Relocation Abroad by Melissa Brayer Hess (October 2007)

Leaving America: The New Expat Generation by John R. Wennersten (November 2007)

The Grown-Up's Guide to Running Away from Home: Making a New Life Abroad by Rosanne Knorr (March 2008)

Retirement Without Borders: How to Retire Abroad -- in Mexico, France, Italy, Spain, Costa Rica, Panama, and Other Sunny Foreign Places (and The Secret to Making It Happen Without Stress) by Barry Golson (December 2008)

Easy Belize: How to Live, Retire, Work, & Buy Property in Belize, the English Speaking Frost Free Paradise on the Caribbean Coast by Lan Sluder (February 2010)

The Truth About Moving Abroad and Whether It's Right for You: Should I Stay or Should I Go? by Paul Allen (March 2010)

How to Make Homemade Flour Tortillas

Once again, I've offered to bring goodies this weekend, and I'm really, really wanting to make my own flour tortillas this time. Now, I've got Mexican-American friends that have shared their expertise with me. I'm dense, I'm not a natural baker, my tortillas just never turned out right no matter how many notes I took as they gave their instructions.

I'm hoping to do better, because of this great video AbrahamDiaz19 has shared on YouTube. Not only is it easy to follow, it uses the stuff I've already got and I don't have to go borrow my friend's tortilla smasher-thingie (the silver metal tool that smuches the dough ball into a flat circle.

One caveat: I've been told that for truly authentic tortillas, you'd use LARD here, not the Crisco or the veggie oil. Just so you know.