I am just sitting here. I ahve been trolling the land of blogging. I just needed to say how amazing each nad every person on this blog is! We are all so different from each other. We have different skills and tallents and backgrounds. I am just so amazed at how much we all have to offer each other! I always can find the encouragement I am looking for when I sit down here and start to read all of yourhearts. I really want to get to spend more time on here. There is soooo much to learn from all of you. I amy hvae been nomeschooled as a child, but the universe has completely changed since then! LOL Homeschooling now has its own solar system! LOL Just know this: You are all appreciated, you are all loved, and you are all prayed for. By your spouses, your kids, your friends, and your blog mates! :)
God Bless!
Niki Strano
My dear sweet hubby works for his dad's company. It is a very small business that speacializes in manufacture, maintenance and repair of air compressors, refrigerated air dryers, vacuum pumps and blowers. This business is the only thin he ahs know since he was a kid. But his parents are now 60 and 62. they have no retirment and have not planned for their "twilight" years at all. It seems as though, given many occurrences of late, the Lord is changing direction in our lives, and my dh feels as though that NOT being involved and working for his dad is part of that change. There is way too much to tell ehre and now, but, he is having to make some very difficult decisions. To help float and establish the business, he has, for some time now, been woking VERY long hours. I am talking avg. of 16 hours a day. Making him a very tired daddy, and frankly, not a part of much of anything that we (mommy and kids) do in our daily lives, including homeschooling. He has made the decision to only work a maximum of 10 hrs a day, and absolutely NO weekends!Mind you he works on salary, so he makes NO OT. Well, this will eventually catch up to the business financially and begin to cause problems. He does not want to sacrifice his wife and kids for the well being of his fathers company. Needless to say, he is having a really hard time in all of this. I am trying VERY hard to just be a supportive wife and not try to sway him in any particular direction. I am learning the fine art of being a good listener. Just letting him get it all off his chest. He has worked like a dog for 10 years and is really tired of not having a life. So I now ask for prayers on his behalf. That the Lord will guide him and show him the path HE has for us. Ipray the Lord is blessing all of you with peace and joy in your lives and in your homeschooling!
In Him,
Niki :)
Curriculum! Need I say more!? It is time to start the ever daunting task of preparing for the next school year. I think that my granny, who homeschooled me, might have had a tiny bit easier in the choosing of curriculum. Lets see: there was Abeka, Bob Jones, and Rod and Staff. And that was IT! OK, so she was very restricted, but man can it be overwhelming. I think I may go nuts by hte time I get through this! LOL I will officially be homeschooling 3 of the 4 kids this next year. I have looked into the BJU Satelite stuff, and the DVD too! It looks soooooooooo easy! But then I have to stop and think, am I going to pay too much for not enough! I need a little input here! I am a veteran in the sense that I WAS homeschooled for 9 of 12 years of school. But then there are all of you moms who ahve been doing more recently and have this whole other experience to draw from! So give me a shout out on what you all like and why. Give a sister a helping hand! God bless to all!
Niki
I felt so very blessed at church this last Sunday. Some friends were in town and we had some time to spend with them. Their names are Patrick and Sondra. Pat works for Les Schwab Tire Co., and he just recently became an assistant manager and had to move to Redding, Ca. to take the position. They don't have kids yet, but they have only been married for 3 years I think. I didn't realize how much I missed hanging out with them until we got to spend some time with them yesterday. We really had a good laugh because they live (if I am thinking right) about 45 minutes north of San Francisco, and it is always raining there! LOL They are both Native Washatonians, and were thinking they were going to become California tanned beauties! LOL Sondra said that is has been sunnier here in the past few days they have been up to visit than it has been since they moved there! I had to laugh at that one :) The whole day reminded me of how important fellowship is. I want more than the surfacy hello in the foyer on Sunday morning. I really long to build some strong relationships with some families that might have everything in common with my fam or, like Pat and Sondra, have much of nothing in common with us except fo their love for the Lord. I want to have gatherings and get togethers, and be able to invite my unsaved neighbor or my dh's unsaved or backslidden co worker and his family to join in the fun so that they can taste and see that the Lord (and His followers) are good. Fun. Alive. Enjoying life. And that we have something to offer them! I want them to see me and want what the Lord gave to me because they are drawn to what they see in me= Jesus! And then I want them to ask the Lord for what they see that we as Christians have in the Lord. AM I making sense here!? LOL I hunger for fellowship within the body, but also want to be able to draw others who are not saved or who have walked away from the Lord to Him and into that fellowship.
SO here is my prayer this day: that we as Christians would seize opportunities to build relationships with other Christians, but not forget to use those reatioships as a way to witness and minister to the unsaved.
God bless your week!
In Him, Niki 8-)
Well, I just got back today from a leisurely weekend at the beach with my dh and 4 kiddo's. We ate too much seafood, played on the beach, explored the tide pools (saw some huge star fish!) and all got a little sun burned and alot wind burned and possibly sand blasted! LOL It had been 14 months since we got away for the weekend as a family. It was nice. We laughed alot and some of us creid too (when we got our bottom swatted for disobeying). So why is it you always feel like you need a vacation from your vacation!? I am exhausted! I feel as though I have been beaten from my head to my toes! Of course we slept in a huge california king sized bed------that was hard as a rock!! We put the kids in the room with the queen sized bed thinking we were clever! Then we went to bed in our room! I lost count of the times we woke up! and said to each other "man this bed is hard!"..Then the second night we put the kids in the BIG bed and we slept in the queen bed after an inspection verified that it was much softer than the other one! See what being greedy can earn you!! LOL But all in all we had a really nice time! I just wish we could do it more often. My dh usually ends up turning his vacation pay in for cash because he cant afford to be away from work as the company he works for (his dads company (fam biz) ) relies on him soooooooooooooooooooo tremendously. So here I put before all readers, please keep my dh in your prayers for his job to even out more and not be soooooo demanding! Many thanks. Now I am off to my bed that I am soooooooooooooo very thankful for! It is soft! Good night! :)
Niki Strano
And i am gonna sit and let it all out! After Sunday we had to run arouond town and do a few errands, so why not grad lunch!? I have to brag a bit because we went to a pizza joint that also had a salad bar and I had the salad bar and ONE piece of pizza!! Talk about self control! LOL Actually, I ate so much salad that I didnt have room for more pizza and I was kinda bummed. 
BUt my self asteem will thank me later when I get on the scale 
After we got home we did a ton of yard work. I shoveled 5 yards of bark dust while my dh and toddler sat on the riding mower and mowed. There is a story there! I wanted the bark dust, my dh didnt care. So he says that I have to shovel it if I want it!! I am a stubborn woman. I get the bark dust. I beg and plead with dh to shovel it. He says NO. I go shovel it. But man what a work out!! I feel like I really did win because he sat on his hiney and i got a work out!! 
I slept very well that night. Then Monday comes. But that is another day! But my point was, be careful waht you get yourself into! You just might end up shoveling the bark dust. But in the end it will be good for you. It was for me!! LOL
I have had an answer to prayer! My friend Shaunna that had surgery yesterday is doing GREAT!! But the truly amazing thing happened today. We are in the middle of refinancing our house. I thought the process was pretty much complete, we were just waiting for the documents to be drawn up and sent to the title co. to await signing. Well................................I called our loan officer today to ask him if we had a sign date or time, and he said no. He informed me the loan had been sent back to him becasue of a little problem found on our credit report. GREAT!! It was a medical bill that we ahd been paying on and the company reported it negatively on our credit report, even though we had been paying the agreed upon ammount and faithfully. He sadi he personally wrote a letter of explanation on our behalf and sent it back to them, but that it really depended on the underwriter and his/her mood when they reviewed it and we wouldnt hear back until next week. I thought I was going to have to have this in my head all week end long! I got off the phone and immediately began to pray. About 10 minutes later I recieved a call from our loan officer. He said, "I have great news for you!!". I held my breath! He informed me that right after we had gotten off the phone just 10 minutes earlier, he got a call from the underwriter saying they were going ot put the loan through! I almost cried. This refi will enable us to be debt free for the first time in our married life of nearly 11 years. Praise God!! Isnt HE awesome!
Well, here is sit at 5:15 AM. my dear husband has been scooted out the door with a hug on his neck and a kiss on his cheek. I ma waiting for a freind to drop off her children to me in 15 minutes. She is going to have surgery today. She was diagnosed with the beginning stages of cervical cancer a month ago and she has already survived breast cancer with out having to have a mastectomy. Her name is Shaunna. You see, she married her highschool sweet heart, with the understanding that a Catholic and a Christian were the same thing. I am not say there are not Catholic Christians out there as I have a very close friend who is a Catholic and has been saved for 10 years. But Shaunna realized, in this situation, that this was not the case with her husband. She spent the first two years in denial, and the next 8 years fightning to save her marriage. He didnt want to. So she found herself a single mother, raiseing 3 kids on her own. She moved from Ca. to Wa. to be with her family so she would have some support. Her ex-husband sues her for custody and won because he ahd money and the courts were concerned about Shaunna's medical issues. That's Ca. for you, eh! She is now in the middle of a custody battle, working more than full time to foot the bill for an attorney, and walking through cervical cancer. The kids are up here for Spring break visitation. I am asking that everyone who reads this will take a moment to say a prayer for Shaunna today, and her children, as she goes through this surgery. But more than that, please pray for the bigger picture. I find myself thanking God more and more every day for every blessing in my life when I look at this. So my hubby isnt perfect- neither am I. But he is a man of God and is my very best friend aside from the Lord. I am blessed! Truly!
Niki
OK! this is going to be not properly punctuated or grammerically correct! this is the 5th 5th 5th time in a week I have tried to sit and blog! i have written 4 diff entries just to have a child come along and hit somethig to erase the whole thing boo hooo booo hoooooooo! but i am so very glad spring is here and it is spring break! i really want to use this opp to get some much needed xtra stuff done in the house. we will see how that goes! LOL but i have good intentions. i really feel bad about something and i need to know if i should or not. i have a unique situation in my home: my hubby works for a fam biz and his wk sched is VERY sporadic! he has NO specific start time and NO specific get off time! it has been this way for 10 years. but of late he has been getting up at 3:30 or 4 AM ! to go to work. he is not a breakfast eater, he likes brunch. so i feel bad about NOT fixing him breakfast. i get up long enough to lay out his work clothes and make java and kiss him on the cheek as he exits the house and then i go back to bed. here is the thing, by the time i get back to sleep, my body wants to sleep until about 7-8 AM. i usually am back in bed by 4:30 - 5 AM. I am almost always up by 7. But i feel like this is not acceptable. am i just being silly or am i being undisciplined? help!! any input is NEEDED!
In Him Niki
I made it!! Here i am, on the other side of the "Monday" as it were. THe kids all had a very much needed day off due to snuffy noses and stuffy attitudes! LOL Could there be a connection? OK- I can admitt it! I had a stuffy nose too. (and maybe a tiny stuffy attitude 
, this little guy shows how my head felt most of the day). But my eye balls did not pop out and my sanity is still in tact, though not by far! LOL My whole family has been dealing with an attitude isee for the past couple of weeks. We are looking for a home church and I am so aggravated. The circumstances surrounding our "quest" are quite simple: the building that our church body was renting got sold. I know God has a plan, but I would rather He reveal it to me in plain text format and not in some ancient scroll format! LOL I have learned so much through this though. I have been encouraged, humbled, saddened, overjoyed, and the list goes on. I have come to realize many things about who I was as a Christian. I have been judgmental. I have hato ask for forgivness more times than I can recall. And I know I have grown and gained some strength in my faith. I just feel lonely. I am a very social person. And I feel like a stranger amongst other Christians. But my devotion time with my kids is alot deeper thanit used to be. I found that I used to rely too much on what my kids learned in Sunday school and not enough on what I should be teaching them. I took much for granted and have had the amazing experience of some very deep conversations with my kids. I know we are being led; we are not stranded. so I know that there is an aventual destination in all of this. If you have been where I am, give a holler my way. I would love to hear from you.
In His love ~ Niki
OK, I am running around lkie a mad woman and trying to make everything work and come together! I feel like when I ignore the everyday stuff to take care of the extra stuff that the everyday suffers so tremendously that it makes focusing on the extra for even just a moment not even appealing or optional! Did any of that make sense?!? We are refinancing our house, and we have an appraiser coming on Wed. at 10 am. I feel like I must accomplish EVERYTHING to make just that perfect impression. But they really are not coming to evaluate the cob webs or the little finger prints on the windows from my dear little toddler, now are they!? Then why do I feel like this. Then, in an accidental pause, I hear this little voice speak- did you hear that!? I strain to hear-----" Be anxious for nothing". Who said that!? Is there someone in my house? I look around. I see no one except for kids trying to look like they are busy helping while they are actually trying to do what they want to be doing. I ignore it. I feel my stress level begin to rise and the attitude of my children feeding off of my attutude that is induced by the stress...........get the pic?.....and then I pause for a breath before I fall over. There it is again! "Be anxious for nothing". I think I better listen this time. I go to my bedroom and say, "Ok, Lord, I am listening." I was instantly clam. Isn't God amazing! Thank you Lord! I fell better now!
Well, I did it!! I have been looking at other people s blogs and finally decided to do one. I have been around the homeschool block. I was raised by my grandparents, and at the tender age of 8 years of age, I was removed from our little towns tiny school and thrown into the wilderness of homeschooling. I was shipped to mars! You see, back in the 80's, if you said homeschooled, the person you were talking to took several steps backward and repeated your statment as if you had just told them you were an alien- really! So my journey began and here I am. Well, it really took alot longer than that, but that is for another day! So I find myself where my dear grandmother found herself way back in the day. But there are a lot of differences between the path she had to take and the path I now find myself on. It is much more worn! It has been made clear by those great pioneers in the early 80's who endured everything from the "Alien" treatment to problems form their local authorities and so on. But I know I am blessed and in this venture. Even on those days when you say to yourself,"What am I doing!!", at the end of the day when my children are snugly tucked in their beds and are ready to be prayed with, I know that if I fail at everything else except for grounding them in the Word and teaching them about Jesus and helping them to become who God created them to be, I have succeeded! Only through Christ who strengthens me. And He made me ME! Until tomorrow- or the next day! LOL Niki 