March 14, 2008 Time for Spring!
I have been so lax in keeping up my blog. I just noticed that I still had the summer time "Cornflowers" up as my header! I totally didn't change to my beautiful harvest header nor my holly winter header. So here we are ready for spring so I've put up my Flowering Dogwood.
I certainly hope our Dogwood tree blooms this year. Two years ago it didn't bloom at all. Last year we had a great frost (rare around here) just as the blossoms were budding and they all died. I took my header picture almost three years ago, and that was the last time I've seen those pretty pink blossoms on our tree!
Our boys have motorcycles now. I can't believe that I allowed that! Well, they're just dirt-bikes, so if they wreck it's not on the gravel or pavement, right? Still could break your neck I guess. I try not to think about it.
 This is Charlie giving Traveling Sadie a ride on his Honda. My boys are so sweet.
Anyone else raising only boys? Don't you sometimes feel like you need another female in the house? I do sometimes. My husband indulges me with American Girl dolls. They are my daughters I never mothered. They don't grow up and leave me either! And they don't argue about their clothing. Actually I really enjoy my 'girls' as I call them. I have lots of their accessories and even a beautiful 8 feet wide by 8 feet tall Dolls' House that my dh built me so they could all stay together.
 This is a picture of four of the rooms in my 6 room Dolls' House. Disregard the circled girl; I made this picture so someone could pick out which doll I was talking about. (It's Corde, if you must know)
I hope you are all ready for a beautiful spring! Enjoy Life!
~Betsy
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I've been enjoying the winter here in east Tennessee. It has finally gotten cold, which I do NOT like. After living only 2 years in hot, humid Honduras, my body adjusted to those upper 90's+ all year round and I have not been warm since coming back to the States!
I haven't been posting much here recently and that's my own fault. I have been busy with the boys, but lately I've been enjoying my spare time by reading! I just love to cuddle up with a good book and warm fire when it's cold outside. I've been neglecting the computer! That's not all bad, I know.
We got to 'puppy sit' the grand-dog a few weekends ago. That was fun. He's a great little dog and we all enjoyed him. Well, all of us except for our cats. Although they are twice the size of little Berkeley, they were most intimidated by him.
So here's a picture of cute Berkeley snoozing on Harold's lap.
 The cats were glad to see him return home. The rest of us miss him. Not like we can't go visit often. Our oldest son and his wife live about 1 mile down the road from us, for now. They plan on moving to Indiana come springtime, though. I don't know if a Mama's heart can take that. We'll see.
~Betsy
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December 1, 2006 Our Christmas Traditions
Well, some of these are "new" traditions, but others have been around for a while. First, we usually put up our tree on December 1st (or the first Saturday in December). We have had this miniature tree for going on 20 years with its miniature toys and gifts on it. (see center of mantel for our miniature tree)
As you can see in this picture, we have those little golden, engraved ornaments for our children for each year that they have had a Christmas. We have them on a ribbon for easy display. They get a new ornament each year. We gave the oldest son his ribbon of ornaments for his first Christmas with his wife. Today he tells me he doesn't know where they are right now, but hopefully they are still in his possession.
We also have a golden ornament for each of the children we have had that went directly to Jesus' waiting arms instead of ours. There are five of these blessings in Heaven. We have a golden, engraved ornament for our foster daughter, too
wherever she may be now.
We don't have a Christmas tree this year (new tradition), we have a "Nativity Tree".
DH has constructed us a corner shelf (where the shelves remove and the sides fold for easy storage) that we can display all of our Nativity sets on. Right now we only have 10. But each year seems to bring more. The bottom shelf sits 18 inches off of the floor so that we can nestle the gifts under the Nativity Tree. As you can also see in this picture, we wrap all our gifts in brown paper and tied with a piece of colorful material or twine. Trying to keep the focus off of the gifts and onto the Giver.
Each morning from December 1 through the 24th we have a small gift for one of the boys to open. This tradition started with an advent calendar that we had in Honduras with tiny gifts to open each day in December. Now we just collect small things all year long until we come up with 24 gifts. We put them in brown paper bags numbered 1-24 and each morning one son gets to open (and keep) the present. We only have two sons left at home, so one opens the odd numbered gifts and the other opens the even numbered ones. This helps with counting down the days until Christmas too.
During our evening family devotions in December we read part of a Christmas novel out loud. One chapter each evening or however it will work out to last 24 days. We always pre-read the book before reading it out loud. This year we are doing the Cinnamon Bear radio drama. It's a lot of fun. You should look into it.
We traditionally have homemade tamales for Christmas Eve supper. This tradition started in Honduras as well. A very yummy tradition. When Christmas morning arrives, we read the Christmas story from Luke 2 and open the gifts all by the light of the fireplace or candles/kerosene lanterns. Also a Honduran tradition since we rarely had electricity there.
That about does it for Christmas traditions. We don't do stockings or Santa (never had
even before we were Christians) We try to portray the true meaning of Christmas with only three gifts per child. We don't do lists or ask what the child wants for Christmas either. And since we don't watch TV (haven't since 1995) they are not covetous of all the commercialism out there. They are very happy with whatever we have given to them.
Merry Christmas to you all!
~Betsy
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October 9, 2006 Josefina Montoya
I've loved the American Girls dolls since they came out in 1986, although at that time, being in my 20's didn't think I needed one. Then I was blessed with 3 boys and still did NOT need an American Girl doll. I do receive their catalogs regularly and have received two of the 'mini' dolls for various birthdays, Josefina (my favorite) and Kaya. I have read all six books for each of the 8 different historical dolls that American Girl makes.
Although now that I'm passed middle age and heading down the other side, I still would love to have an American Girl to add to my small, but growing doll collection. I have a couple dolls from my childhood that I keep out on top of the bookcases. I have a few others that are from my childhood era that I have found at Goodwills and yard sales.
On eBay last week, my dh found a used, well loved Josefina that he thought I would love and care for. He bought her. She arrived today. He gave her to me as soon as he came home for lunch today. She's beautiful. I cried. She needed quite a make-over and I've included a before and after picture here for you to see how she has transformed after I spent 3 hours trying to untangle her hair.
Her new skirt I made from a placemat that I had brought back from Mexico when we lived there. My mother had it and gave it back to me last visit with her. Her rebozo and belt I made from a scrap of Mexican cloth that I had from that same summer in Mexico. Her underthings (slip and pantiloons) I had already made for another similar sized doll I already had. Her blouse I already had too. I believe she turned out pretty good.
Much love to my dh for indulging my middle-aged whims.
~Betsy
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September 12, 2006 Smoky Mountain Bloggers' Picnic II
I will also blog about the Smoky Mountain Bloggers' Picnic II, but I will spell SMOKY correctly, unlike our fellow Smoky Mountaineers, Gena and JenIG. Maybe we will give them some slack because they are new. But really now, they've been here OVER a year, so really there's no excuse for that!
However, see Maria's blog or email her for more info if you can come out to our second Smoky Mountain Bloggers Picnic on September 21. See you then.
~Betsy
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August 28, 2006 Zippity-doo-da!!
Look, I'm on-line again! I don't know how long it will last. It seems to be coming and going (they're still working on setting up my new system.)
A little explanation concerning our Internet: The college (JBC) has T1 Internet cable. I live about 1/8 of a mile from the main hub, across a 10 foot strip of land that does NOT belong to the college, so they are not allowed to dig and bury the T1 cable to my house. So the College bought a $2000 wireless direct system that receives the signal from the college's main hub and hooked it to my roof. Ta-da! Direct access Internet cable at my house! Now if it just keeps on working!
So, here I sit at my OWN computer and will try to catch up on all you all that I haven't read anything about in THREE weeks!!! I feel so out of touch!
~Betsy
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Well, just a quick post to let you all know that our Internet access went down on Wednesday last and I'm sitting in the library right now trying to catch up on my email. I don't have time to read the blogs to see what all of you are up to. I hope the Internet will be back soon, but who knows.
Oh, is anyone coming to Dollywood homeschool days? We are going. Let me know if you will be there and maybe we can hook up!
~Betsy
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August 8, 2006 My Coffee Story
Well, I've found that HeartnSoul has a contest for a neat little coffee/tea canister. All you need to enter her contest is post about why you like coffee or tea. Hmm...this is going to be easy:
I did NOT like coffee when I was younger. We even received a coffee maker as a wedding gift and I GAVE IT AWAY. I did not start drinking coffee until I had my first child (22+ years ago). Finding that I needed something to keep me awake during the day after all those sleepless nights, I turned to coffee.
Now I LOVE IT! Straight, black, bold and strong is the way. We lived in Honduras for two years (one of the major exports of this small country is coffee) so my favorite kind is Honduran coffee. We used to just pick fresh coffee beans off of the plants and eat them. Coffee high without a hot drink! Yummy.
Hondurans make coffee more like expresso...something like a 1/4 cup of grounds per CUP of coffee. Even I need hot milk in the stuff down there! But, ahhhhh, I wish I had some right now.
~Betsy
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June 7, 2006 More explanation
HouseMouse has asked a question in her comment and I thought maybe some of you are wondering too about why we live on a Bible College campus.
We live at beautiful, Johnson Bible College in Knox County, Tennessee (about 7 miles SE of Knoxville.) The college consists of about 150 faculty and staff year around. There are 750+ students here during the course of the school year. The College likes to have a 'family' atmosphere so they provide great staff housing on campus. There are many different types of staff housing...duplexes, townhouses, houses built in the '50s and some even built in the '20s. The college has been around since 1894.
My dh is the Webmaster of JBC and also the Christian Service Director. As part of the faculty, he is given housing as part of his employment package. We have the privilege of living on a six acre farm, which is also part of the campus. We live in a 60 year old farm house.
The college has cattle and will always have cattle as part of the founder's wishes to remain a 'working college'. He wanted a place where the poor, hardworking student may get a Bible education while working his way through college.
It is a great place to live and work. We are surrounded by our community of Christians living and working together to help train up the next generation of Church leaders. We have several homeschoolers on campus, but even the Teacher Education department of JBC (which trains Christian school teachers) is supportive of our efforts to raise our children the way the Bible has instructed us to do.
Oh and also SmallWorld's brother is an instructor here, too.
Now off to help the Senior Saints for today!
~Betsy
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May 31, 2006 no time like the present!
I was just sitting here reading everyone else's updates and feeling the need to update my blog. So, what about now? I suppose now is as good a time as ever.
I have been so busy lately. We are finished with school, but we live on a Bible College campus that is used by literaly hundreds of people during the summer months for retreats. This week (and last, and also the next two) consists of "Senior Saints in the Smokies" This is when we have from 300-450 retired folks coming to the beautiful campus of Johnson Bible College and enjoying outings in the mountains, shopping in the outlets, seminars, workshops, fun, food and fellowship.
It's really a great time .... but oh such a busy time for us staff who volunteer to help serve these great Saints. The boys and I have volunteered to help the SS (short for Senior Saints, as we lovingly refer to them) pack their sack suppers each day. We help set up great sandwich and accessory tables where they can pick what they want to pack for supper and we help them. This way the SS can go off during the afternoon to an outing and don't have to be back on campus for any type of evening meal. They can enjoy their afternoon and arrive back on campus for the evening fellowship time at 7pm.
There are many other opportunities to serve the SS as they have workshops, breakfasts, lunches, main sessions, not to mention check-ins and check-outs each of the four weeks.
I also have volunteered to present a workshop twice each of the four weeks. So on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons I'm leading my workshop on Charitable Sewing. I'll write a blog entry about that when I get finished with all the workshops.
The boys also volunteer to help with luggage during check-ins and check-outs. They have great servants' hearts. The Seniors also love to see young people helping out.
That about sums up my week last, present and for the next two coming.
~Betsy
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April 22, 2006 Golden Ticket
I certainly love spring! Today is Resurrection Sunday and I've been enjoying the beautiful spring that God has given us. We met at the French Broad River EARLY today for Sunrise Service (make that Sonrise); then we had a pitch in breakfast back at the church building (see my avatar); then regular Sunday School and Sunday Service. It was all very beautiful.
The dogwoods are NOT in bloom yet, but will be this week, I can tell. That lovely picture on my template is a picture I took last spring of our dogwood in blossom. Breathtaking, isn't it?
We are very busy this week with the final week long practices for JBC's production of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory". It opens Friday night, continues Saturday night and final performance on Sunday afternoon. Read about that event on the HSN Tennessee blog here.
This is also our last week of school for homeschool year #11. It's hard to believe that we have been homeschooling that long. It doesn't seem like it. It's such a way of life, that I sometimes forget that there are others who go to traditional schools and have to stick to a SCHEDULE according to what the state wants them to do! *sigh*
Praise the Lord, I love my job!
~Betsy
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April 6, 2006 Our school room(s) March 6, 2006 New vehicle at our house!
Let's all rejoice! My dh had been interim preaching at a church that was 1 1/2 hour drive from our house. So we, as a family, spent over 3hours each Sunday on the road for over 9 months. Well, the Lord has found the minister for that congregation, so our trips to Crossville have stopped.
However, we were able to save EVERY paycheck that he received from those many months of "Sunday drives". This past weekend, we were able to purchase outright a 2004 Suzuki XL.7 (SUV)!
It's a little intimidating to be driving a 'new' suv when I'm used to my '95 Jimmy. But I believe I can get used to this!
Also, check out the blog that I spend most of my time updating: Tennessee. I can find more things to post about the state than just ramblings from the homefront.
Have a great week! ~Betsy
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February 20, 2006 JBC Homecoming
This is a busy week for us who live/work at Johnson Bible College.
It's HOMECOMING!! There will be speakers, workshops, reunions of
the various graduating classes and FRIENDS and FELLOWSHIP!
Our boys enjoy all the activities that abound for the young ones
too. We always take the week off of school during JBC Homecoming
in order to take part in all the festivities.
To read about what's going on this week, follow this link: Johnson Bible College Homecoming (my dh is webmaster, so I'm kind of particial to this site!)
~Betsy
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