Posted in Family Life

Well, as if we didn't have enough going on, we decided to start a little home business.  Here's the story of how it started out (cut and pasted from our flyer):

We purchased our Homeschool curriculum used over the internet in an effort to be good stewards of the money which God has given us.  The lady that was selling it had thoroughly enjoyed using it, but was using it with her youngest children – so she no longer needed it.  The night before she was to mail it, I woke up in the middle of the night thinking about the curriculum, which had likely not been insured for delivery (she was paying for postage).  It was like God was advising me to take out insurance on it.  So, I emailed her and fortunately she checked her email before she left for the post office the next day to mail the package.  After 3 weeks of us emailing back and forth waiting for the package, she received a notice in the mail that my package had been separated from the label, and was lost.  She started a search, which came up empty, and then filed the insurance claim.  We finally received a check on Monday, but it was short $50, which was the P.O.s error, and they are mailing out a supplementary check.  At this point, we have already started our school year with what curriculum we do have available, but need to repurchase the rest.  So, we are purchasing directly from the company this time, to save time and any more possible misfortune.  We are truly thankful to God that He has allowed us to Homeschool and that He has blessed us to be resourceful to be able to repurchase our curriculum!  Glory to God!!

So, the original intent was to do a fundraiser to raise the additional funds needed to purchase our curriculum new from the publisher - My Father's World.  We are selling fresh homemade bread made from fresh whole wheat flour and homemade jams.  The day after  Big P took the fundraiser order form to work a woman that he works with came to him and wanted to give him a donation for our school.  At this point, we had already received enough in orders to cover the cost of the curriculum, but the donation she gave went over the top and then some, so that we were able to purchase some other "wants" for our homeschool curriculum, as well.

I have been praying since the day that this little venture came to fruition that the Lord would be honored through it and that it would not take a higher priority than Him or my family.  The orders have been pouring in, and there is even a possibility that I could have some rather large orders from a friend with her company for my specialty jame "Kickin' Strawberry Jam", which is a hot strawberry jam.

So, I am praying and thinking about how to fit it all in and not neglet my family.  I believe that I will be doing all jam making in the evenings after the kids are in bed.  With bread, I want to sell it fresh, so some of that will have to be done while they are awake, but I'm thinking of offering deliveries every 2 weeks.  My Mom and Mother-in-love took orders for me at church, work, and through family members.

I spent all of Friday and a lot of Saturday filling those orders.  I've learned a lot about baking bread and making jam in the last week!!

I made another batch of peach jam today and will do another one this afternoon.  Tomorrow I will make 2 batches of my Kickin' Strawberry, as I have orders waiting for that and I feel like the rest will sell easily if they are in hand.

So, that is what I have been up to - and we started school last week.

About to serve lunch, so I better get.  I'll try to update more later.