5 Minutes for Mom is giving away an INCREDIBLE HP TouchSmart 600 computer for Christmas!  Check it out here!

The room is done!   There is even some furniture moved in already.  It came out great, a little bit smaller than we had hoped for, but GREAT none the less...  The whole experience was great!  The contractor was super GREAT!   The workers were great! The project came in $600 under the proposal so we had some additional work done.  Our contractor went out of his way to get us deals.  He went two counties away to get us bamboo floors that were sitting in a barn ~ the leftovers of a business that had gone under.  We got them for $1 a linear foot ... they retailed for over $5 a linear foot.  They are perfect!!  He also looked our house over and found a few things that were in desperate need of repair and fixed them for almost no cost.  Let's put it this way.  Part of our home had to be jacked up because of a failing support beam.  He did the job for $76 ~ the cost of the beam and a little extra to pay for his helper.  The mess was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be ....  So, you all want me to stop carrying on about how great it was and let you see the results for yourselves!?!?

Yay! Well, this is all you are getting right now.  The big reveal will be just after Christmas.  This year we are giving no toys (except stocking stuffers) so that we can decorate the children's bedrooms.  I'll show you all the rooms once we have curtains up and such.

In the meantime we will be painting the rest of this room.  We decided to paint the floor insted of refinishing the wood becuase it is so costly if you have a professional do it.  My dh has refinished two floors in our home, but it was a really grueling project, and they have not held up as well as we would have expected.  So for now we will paint this floor instead.  We will need to do all of the trim work and no furniture can go on it for a week. 

That is all for now!  

Blessings,

Dawn

November 19, 2009

Dear Ginger

You asked to be notified of VOM Meetings in your area. A new meeting has been scheduled.

Meeting Details

Friendship Baptist Church
Speaker	Robert Brock
Location	3310 Old Niles Ferry Rd Maryville, TN 37804
Date	November 22, 2009 at 09:15 AM

For more information about this meeting, including a description and driving instructions, please click here.

www.homeschoolblogger.com/earthenvessel/

Mrs. Bee just sent me the cutest pictures of her and Honey Bear wearing their aprons!! I just love them!!

Isn't she a cutie patootie?? Looks just like her mama!! They are standing in the kitchen of the house where Mrs. Bee works. Mrs. Bee had to bake a turkey today for a Boy Scouts Thanksgiving dinner tonight. But she also had to work so, she made the turkey at work. I'm so glad they have their aprons to wear for this!

Constitution = 17 printed pages to run the entire country.

"Health Care" bill = 2,074 (unread) printed pages to ruin - eh hemmm - run 1/6 of our economy.   

What's wrong w/this picture?

www.homeschoolblogger.com/earthenvessel/

I have realized that one of the things that motivates me and fills my cup is being creative. I guess taking picture of my creations and posting them does as well!  Today I filled my cup by making an apron for my sweet little friend Baby Bear. Actually her new nickname is Honey Bear because she is outgrowing Baby Bear.

I'm very pleased with how her apron turned out! It is made to match one I made for her mama for Christmas. I already gave Mrs. Bee her apron so she can wear it to do her holiday baking. Now Honey Bear can wear hers too!  I can't wait to get pictures of HB wearing this!!

We may actually have our home improvement projects done before Thanksgiving.  We now have space to homeschool, not to mention EAT. 

The stove was moved back and plugged in none too soon. Recent deaths in our church family meant serving food for the bereaved. Handsome Hubby just informed me that the Deacons will be cooking dinners for the widows of our church in a couple of weeks [so I'll try to have a backup meal ready to thaw and serve in case they burn the Fellowship Hall down--just kidding, sweetie!].  My pal Kasey is famous for saying: "A Baptist meets all catastrophes with  Scripture, prayer, and casseroles." 

The office, kitchen, and two of the bedrooms are painted leaving only the dining room. The floor in the kitchen is absolutely MAAHH-velous, and almost complete.  And the stuff we've gotten rid of! Yikes! Who knew that there was a whole 'nother house hiding in the mess of the one we now dwell? That's how it felt, going through all the clutter. Space and order is so refreshing.

 In family devotional time last night, I had to confess that my attitude stunk during the remodel [as though the family didn't already guess that about two months ago!]

The Family LIfe broadcast yesterday with Nancy Leigh DeMoss focused on being grateful. How convicting! Here God's blessing us to improve our home and fussing about the inconvenience and disorder.  What was really a blessing, I treated as a burden. The end of this messy process will yield beauty, comfort, and order for our family. But I was stubbornly holding an  "I can't stand the mess RIGHT NOW" attitude. Once again, something small became a teaching moment from God. This little lesson in patience and gratefulness is easy to hear and to give lip-service to, but  hard to put into  practice. 

So, gentle reader, we are getting it altogether again in so many ways.  If I can actually take a picture that isn't fuzzy, I might post some when we are all finished.