If anyone is still out there, interested, and checking in...
Here goes!
A couple of months ago, I realized hubby was somewhat unhappy at his job. Any wife out there knows (I mean KNOWS!) the value of having a hubby who is happy at work. Well, we started talking about options, dreams, hopes, desires... and we decided that we would just pray about what the Lord wanted us to do.
What began after that... well, just goes to prove that God created us in His image... including an amazing sense of humor.
We began getting daily confirmation that this was not the place for us to be. My husband began to get very unhappy at work, worse every day. Then the jobs started opening up in a land far away. Someone killed themselves one building over in our complex, and some little 8 year old boy threatened to hurt my 5 year old - several times and severely. Then Paul began to actually get excited about other options out there.
Well, long story short(er), We are moving to Nashville, TN which is "home" to me. I grew up just outside of town and my whole family (minus my sister) lives there still! Paul is super excited about living there, we have found an awesome house, he found a great job with wonderful hours and plans to start a catering business type thing on his own shortly after we arrive! The kids are excited to live very near to grandparents and I am really happy to be able to get my "stuff" out of storage and back into my house!
So... the moving truck is waiting outside and here I sit updating my blog! Can you say "procrastination"? Can you use "procrastination" in a sentence? Like, "Nothing like some severe procrastination to cause a real lack of sleep!!"
Thank you all for checking in with me, for your prayers, and for your comments!
Have you ever had one of those days, or weekends, that feels right out of the pages of the Bible when it talks about the "long day"? I swear I think the days of this past weekend were at least double the length - or maybe that is just because I didnt sleep very much or very well any of those nights!
Friday afternoon/evening was our church's annual Women's Retreat! I was on the committee this year which meant showing up early to help set up, get things looking pretty, and generally help out wherever needed. IT was such a nice night! It is always fun to see my friends from church, hang out with the ladies, laugh, eat and just catch up with some wonderful friends! My new best friend (I am certain we were separated at birth... or at least our husbands were!!) was there with her mom, aunt and sister in law.. so I got to meet them and get to know them a little better!!
Around midnight I went home and cleaned house for about an hour... (after all, hubby had been home with the kids all night ALONE...) before falling into bed. 6am came REALLY early. I had to wake the kids up and drive 3.5 hours to get to NY for a bridal shower that started at noon! Coffee in cup holder, we set out on our second busy day. I must admit, I was not looking forward to this trip... not because I didnt want to support my future sis-in-law, but because I was missing the second day of the retreat in order to drive 7 hours round trip to get there and back (with 4 kids, through NYC, etc.). We arrived, girls jumped into dresses, I re-did my hair and make up, and off we went to the shower while the boys stayed home at the in-laws with their uncles for the afternoon. The shower was very pretty, looooooong, but pretty.
After the shower we went back to the in-laws house to play with the kids in the yard (it was a gorgeous day!) and I decided to try to call a substitute to teach my Sunday school class the next morning so I didnt have to jump RIGHT back into the car to drive 3.5 hours home!!! I did find a sub and I was able to stay there that night and have girls-night watching Enchanted and staying up TOO late AGAIN!!
Sunday morning again, came too soon!! I crawled out of bed at 7 and began rounding up our supplies to head home. I made a trip to a local bagel place to get breakfast for all the kids and a dozen to take home to hubby, then came back to the house to try to convince the kids to eat fast enough for us to get on the road by 8. Then 8:15. Then I was begging to be in the car by 8:30! Finally we said our goodbyes, got into the car to leave, and we were on our way home. After missing my final exit in PA and driving a good 20 miles out of the way to get home, we arrived back home around 11:45. We ran inside, I changed clothes really quickly... then hubby jumped in the car with all of us and we went to go buy a gift for my friend's son's birthday and went to the party!!
The party started at 1pm... we hung out over there with her family so long that everyone else left and we had to figure out what to make for dinner! The hubbies went to the grocery store and we made a lovely meal for everyone. That was the most relaxing and fun part of my weekend! I just love hanging out with couple friends that we have so much in common with!
So today I am EXHAUSTED... I cant believe it was only ONE weekend!
I have to write about my driving in NYC experience soon... I love it when I am able to see God's provision for our family in very CLEAR ways and this was just amazing! (How's that for a teaser!?)
and I AM sorry, and I am SO thankful for my blogger friends who check in often and post even though its been a month since my last post! I feel like sending you all big huge hugs!
What has been going on... well, a lot of stressful things, some funny things, and more mundane things of life than I care to think about.
We had a nice Easter weekend! We visited very-extended family in New Jersey, I got jealous of my sis-in-law's post-baby, nursing, size-4 body... totally unfair, it was way too cold for the cute springtime dresses and sandals I brought for the girls and I to wear to church - but you HAVE to wear spring clothes on Easter Sunday (I am pretty sure its Biblical).
Our dog may have been impregnated by a low-class, fly-by-night, who-knows-what-breed dog and it makes me nauseous to think about it... so I won't think about that until around 50 days from now when I will begin to panic if I feel movement. The 62 day timeframe from conception to birth puts us two weeks before the double-wedding-whammy coming this June. I WILL find out who owns this mongrel and show up with half of the vet bills... just watch me. She was tied outside on our deck -just going potty- we dont have a fence yet - when my daughter comes running in saying "look mom! Another dog outside with Ricotta!!" GRRR. This is the dog who will not CATCH food when you throw it because she wants to inspect it first. This is the dog who pulls clothes out of the hamper to make a bed since the floor isnt soft enough for her. This is the dog who will not drink her water if some food gets into her bowl. This is the dog who follows me around the house when I am vaccuming with the hose extension and will not leave me alone until I vaccum her as well - it feels nice and she LOVES it. She is a princess at 90 lbs, a breed called the worlds most BEAUTIFUL dog... and she went slumming. It just makes me sick. I can't DO puppies y'all! I love love love puppies... but we are in a townhouse - not somewhere with plenty of room for this type of activity to go on!
Changing the subject before I work myself into a tizzy...
Whew. I am registered for the "She Speaks" convention for Christian writers and speakers! I am super excited and nervous about going! I just "feel" like the Lord is leading me into a speaking role in ministry... but I have terrible stage fright. I was in some community theater as a teen, and I only ever had tiny parts. By tiny, I mean walk-on-extra parts - - non-speaking parts. I was a background person in Brigadoon, actually I think I had the named part of "fishmonger"... but no lines. They couldn't hear me during auditions. I though I was screaming from the stage, but the director kept saying "speak up Dear!" Mortifying. I had a small role in a couple school plays, again, no-line-extra parts. Then I found a niche in theatrical make up backstage. That was fun. I got to make 17 year olds look like grandparents. However, I digress. Me? Speak in front of large groups? You know the irony of speaking at women's events? There are almost ALWAYS people there who have initials after their names designating them as having more knowledge than I do - especially of the Biblical kind. I just took my first test in Evangelism 101 (yes, I skipped right over that 101 level class and jumped to 400 levels... not sure how they let that one by), and got a 75!! I would freak out if my kids got a 75 on a test... but I got a 75 in a BIBLE class!!! Ugh. Sucker punch. It was mostly memorization of verses in Romans, Titus and Ephesians... and I stink at memorization. I can finish a verse if someone starts it, but rarely can I give you the reference.
What else, what else....
OH. My 11 year old thought hair loss = cancer. He was pulling out hair by the fingerfulls from the back of his head and I could hear it ripping from the follicles... so I told him all about how cancer patients have to take the chemo drugs and that is what causes the hair loss, not the cancer. Then I discovered he had pulled out enough hair to give himself a 1" diameter bald spot right in the swirl part of the back of his head. Crazy child. It did work out in my favor though, as the embarrasment led him to want to get his hair cut so that it wasnt so obvious!! WOOHOO! I can see his eyes AND ears again!
I will try harder to keep posting things as they happen...
I am reading up on YOUR blogs... just dont have much time to post comments... but I am enjoying the posts!
Well, it has been a sad night at our house. I spoke with the people who are going to be Pharah's (Sarah) new host family till she returns to Haiti and they want to come pick her up tomorrow evening.
The girls cried their eyes out when they found out. I cried because they were crying. I will miss her, too! She is such a sweet baby I just can't stand the thought of having her leave us tomorrow night and she will have only been here 3 days! How on EARTH would we be able to handle it if we hosted her for the rest of the time then had to put her on a plane back to Haiti? My oldest thinks its unfair that she has to go back. I know she has a mother who loves her waiting for her return, but I have my moments too. I wonder how it could be fair for her to have to return to a place where 1 out of 3 infants die before their 1st birthday. How could it be fair to nurse her back to health here, feed her nutritious foods, give her baths in clean water, keep her clean and warm and safe... then send her back to poverty. It just feels cruel.
We love this little baby girl and I just pray that somehow her life will be blessed and that somehow she will grow up to be healthy and happy. I just dont feel happy about it right now.
I wonder if I am cut out for this kind of thing.
I thought I was called to help in this way! I thought the Lord was telling me to help coordinate the care of these kiddos and host one ourselves - after all, how can I tell others to host if I have not? I thought He was leading me in this direction so then why is it so stinking HARD to give her up after only 72 hours?!?!? I feel like I have failed her. I feel like I am giving up somehow, even though I am only obeying what my husband thinks is right in this situation. Why do I then feel so helpless and powerless? I thought there was power and freedom in submitting?
We will all miss this little girl. She is such a blessing.
We have all been blessed to be a part of her life. I have been so touched by my children's compassion towards this little girl. They do not see her like the world sees her. They do not look at her and gawk at her head circumference or stare in horror at her sunsetting eyes. They look at her and see a baby girl. They love to make her smile and laugh! They lay next to her and watch WonderPets because she loves the colors and music. They lay next to her so that she can see them even though she has limited eye movement and can not see people at some angles. They hold her bottles. They kiss her cheeks. They are really, really going to miss her a lot.
I am helping coordinate the folks from our church who are hosting babies from Angel Missions Haiti.
Well, there is a baby named Pharah who has been here since January and had her surgery Jan.31st. Her host family had a crisis and I went to go pick her up last night to bring her to our house! Her name is pronounced "Sarah". She is ADORABLE! She is such a happy baby and so easy going! Last night she came to our house for the first time, had never seen me before, and she slept all night till 7am! She is around 15 months old and is developmentally delayed because of her hydrocephaly, but she is SO social and expressive with her smile!
If you want more info on hosting a baby in your area... we need more host families in the Delaware/Philadelphia/Hershey/Maryland area! www.angelmissionshaiti.blogspot.com for more info and pictures of our little house guest!
She will only be here temporarily since hubby would like for us to not host her for the whole 2 months since he will be out of town so much over the next few weeks and he wants to protect my sanity. Perhaps we will host another child who comes later this year after the weddings are over in June!
Kiddos here are doing great... loving www.time4learning.com for our curriculum right now. Its the season for us to use something like this and the price is right! Its user friendly and I love that I can have them work more independently this way, too!
Our Konos virtual co-op is doing Trust right now. These last two weeks have been flight/airplanes/aviation etc. Well, a new friend of mine, Angelene, lives very near by and we scheduled a field trip together with another mom to go to the Mid Atlantic Air Museum (www.maam.org).
Yesterday was the big day! It was a wonderful January day - beautiful weather, and decently behaved kids! We had a great time visiting the museum! The tour guide was incredible. He knew everything about everything - or at least he told convincing stories! :)
The kids brought home souvenirs and lots of information and memories of the day.
Ok, so 8 days to go till the move and today I picked up approx 15 boxes from the grocery store. I then came home and packed all 15 and it doesnt look like I have done a THING except for the pile of filled, labeled boxes in the living room!! ARGH! I had no idea we have so much stuff in this tiny apartment!! What were we thinking?!?
I have to go get more boxes later... if you have any tips on where to find them PLEASE let me know!
My sister and hubby's brother will both get married (within a week of each other on opposite sides of the country... of course!)
We are moving into a townhouse to give us more room and the ability to pay off debt at a faster rate.
We will be debt free by fall!
I pray we are able to host a Haitian baby for a surgical procedure from Angel Ministries Haiti.
My mom turns 50!
Hopefully at least 2 trips back home to visit family.
Now... I am not really one to make New Year's Resolutions (since they almost NEVER happen if I "resolve" to do them)... but here are some personal goals for this year:
1. I would like to lose a few lbs before my sister's wedding - I am the matron of honor and I would prefer to look a little less matron-ly around the middle.
2. I want to get more consistent with my devotional time in the mornings.
3. I want to institute a family time for us to talk about things, pray together, and just enjoy being a family... on a weekly basis.
4. Plan and prepare ACTUAL meals for my family. This will take a HUGE effort on my part since I am on a "special" diet and I prefer to just fix whatever they will eat and make myself a snack. We all need to be eating healthy foods on a regular basis and I have become lazy with the whole process.
5. Work at becoming more consistent with the Fly Lady daily chores. I was doing pretty well until we moved into such a cramped space... I am hoping that the new place will be just roomy enough for us to spread out a little and I can organize our areas better.
I think that's enough!! We can all sit around and name hundreds of things we would like to change, but then we just feel bad about ourselves afterwards! Instead, I think I will try to focus on those things that are really important to me and my family and once THOSE things are habitual... add something else.
Well, no. We are not going to be moving into that house. I am sure it will wind up being a blessing, but today... I just don't know how I feel. Part of me is a little relieved to have had the burden of decision making taken off of my shoulders, but another part is mourning the loss of the ideas I had for the new place. The nights we were going to roast marshmallows in the fire pit, the kids playing in the woods, fort-building, inviting friends over for dinner, getting my things out of our storage building, etc, etc. I called and told our current property manager and he was a little relieved. He said when the new guy had called for a rental reference he asked all kinds of "strange questions" about us that were above and beyond the typical "are they ever late on the rent" type things. He said the guy just sounded really controlling and like he would micro-manage the house and the yard. So... there is the blessing I suppose. He did seem quite high-strung. They have 4 boys and he kept saying how I needed to be REALLY careful with the kids on the rocks in the woods... after all, they could slip and fall. "you have how many boys? And you are still this nervous?" Anyone with multiple children, especially boys, can attest to the fact that after the 3rd one... it just isnt worth worrying too much about what they COULD get hurt on/with/around... they will just find a new way you have not thought about yet!
Anyway, our property manager mentioned last night that they also have another house coming up for rent across the street. Its a little larger, but I don't know if it would be worth the stress of moving to move closer to the train tracks (they would literally be right out the back door). I am going to go walk through the house anyway though. The extra space might be nice - but not if we can't empty out our storage unit and save that money each month.
Thanks for praying for our family. I know things are stressful but this is a season. Someday, just like the Israelites, I will be able to look back on this time and marvel at what God brought us through - only to give us something so much better than we can imagine right now.
Anyone who would like to join my family in prayer.. I would appreciate it!
If you have kept up with my blog, you know some stuff about the apartment we live in currently.
It is strategically located between two railroad crossings (HOOONNNNKKK!!!!), two fire stations (with the sirens to call the volunteers), up two flights of stairs to get into the apartment, and next door to chain-smoking, party-throwing teenagers. The smoke smell comes through the walls into the closets and kids bedroom. Yes, all 4 kids are in the same bedroom. We moved in here out of desparation because our house in Missouri was not selling and our family had been separated for several months and we just wanted to be together. Well, we are CERTAINLY together in here!!
Well, its been a year already and it is time for our lease renewal or termination. I have been scouring listings on Craigslist, the local newspaper, and realtor.com for some place else to rent that would give us more room (LOTS more room), and a nice yard as well as a garage space for hubby.
This past week I found a house with *4* bedrooms, a nice sized kitchen with a window over the sink that overlooks the 3 1/2 acre back yard!!! When I went to go see the house, the kids had a great time playing in the woods and climbing on rocks! There is even a fire pit in the yard! I LOVE campfires!! The drawbacks... there is no fence for the dog and there is no garage, but there is a car port, walk up attic for storage and an unfinished walk-out basement for hubbys tools and stuff.
It is not far from where we are now so we could stay at the same church and still be near the kids friends they have made there. Everything else I have found has been either WAY WAY WAY out of our price range or WAY way way far away from where we currently live. We were going to buy a house here but we feel like God may move us out of PA in a few years to start a family retreat center ministry, and we don't want to have to worry about selling another house!!
I will update if we get the house... or not. We will know for sure by Thursday of this week.
Last night the kids and I went up to a local church who was hosting a "Light the Night" event. I didn't want to sit at home and listen to the teenagers yell and scream as they went up and down the street and my dog was freaking out at all the extra noise anyway.
That meant we had to come up with some last minute costumes. I searched the Family Fun website and the kids all came up with something easy, fast and FREE! My youngest was a clown - since he already had a dress up costume for that. Olivia was the hardest, I laid out 7 potential costumes on the bed and she didnt like any of them. Finally she decided to wear all black and be a "robber". To each her own. Allie (9) wanted to be a "spa girl" so she wore her bathrobe, a towel around her head, her sleep mask and we created a green face mask concotion, oh and she wore slippers too! My oldest is 11 and everything has to be "cool"... so we made him into a "breakfast table". We cut a hole for his head to go inside a long flat box we had from a curriculum shipment, then I found an old table cloth, cut a hole in that too... hot glued them together so they didnt get all twisty, then we had fun gluing food and stuff to the table. We used paper plates, plastic cups, a fake food orange juice container, empty individual raisin boxes, a couple of apples, a rolled up news paper and we had pancakes for dinner - so I put one on each plate and glued on the empty syrup bottle! His costume was the hit of the night! People kept coming over and sitting things on him! LOL!
They had fun playing games and eating and I had fun being out of the house!!
This is our baby, Ricotta, when she was only 6 weeks old! We got her VERY young since her mother started rejecting the puppies at 4 weeks. She was brought home with her brother, Moby, who we kept until they were both 3 months old and then Moby went to live with a friend from hubby's work who had just recently lost their Pyr of 10 years to some illness. She is SO sweet and fluffy!! I miss those puppy faces!! She is still cute though... even 2 years later!
Hmmm. There is probably not anyone reading this anymore since I have not posted in forEVER!
The kids and I seem to be hitting our stride on our daily lessons. I think I have found the happy medium between my oldest's need for worksheets and tangible "what did I learn today" stuff and my own need to not be so tight collared! I bought some workbooks that are designed for kids over the summer who are moving between grades - to review and keep them fresh for the next school year. I am giving them a page a day in that (short assigments in 3 or 4 subject areas) and the oldest gets some geometry work as well as some geography each day then we get into our Konos stuff. My younger daughter is doing a lot of spelling work, dictionary stuff, her workbook pages and some map skills as well as the RightStart math and Konos stuff. They both read for an hour a day, so that's productive.
Today I made my big timeline on the kitchen wall... its cool! I made 18 rows (2 each) of colored sentence strips for teachers. They came in orange, hot pink, blue, neon green, and yellow - so the first 2 rows are from 3000 BC to 2001 BC, then 2000 bc to 1001 BC, then the blue rows are 1000 to the birth of Christ. I have 5 rows of green strips to get us the first 1000 years of A.D history, then 4 1/2 yellow rows to get us from 1001 to 1850. Starting at 1800 I did one strip for every 50 years for more recent history. The kids are WAY excited! Tomorrow (and maybe Friday) we are going to get our math done and then just look up people to put on our timeline! They are going to make one for themselves to put on their year, then we will look up the birthdates of the people we have studied up till now in school this year. I don't know who is more excited - them or me!!
Also... cool, quickie leftover chicken recipe!
Take all your leftover chicken (or make some new stuff!) and shred it off of the bone - or chop. Should be enough for each person in your family to have about 1/2 a cup (depending on appetites!). I cook extra chicken just for this recipe!
Toss into your crock pot with some chicken stock (to cover the bottom), a jar of salsa, and a can of black beans and a package of taco seasoning (I use cumin, paprika, and onion powder to avoid allergens).
Cook on low for a few hours. I made corn tortilla "tacos" and sauteed them in some butter and served with sour cream, cheese and guacamole! Yum.....
Ok... so its our second week of school, which gives you a good timeline on when my last post was!
We are in Konos Vol. 1 Attentiveness using the virtual Co-op. We are doing a lot of activities on sound/music/etc. Here is our day.
First we wrote poems about the sounds of fall. I left this up to the kids' interpretations, since I was just happy to have them be creative with their writing and keep it short and sweet!
Did anyone ever see "Deep Thoughts... by Jack Handy" on Saturday Night Live?
I think my 6-in-7-more-days daughter should get a job writing for them!! Here goes:
When the sun is up
I will wake up
in the morning time.
When the leaves change colors
I will pick them up off of the ground
and crunch them.
When I bring Ricotta outside
to play with her in the leaves,
she rolls around in the piles
and looks like ice cream
covered in sprinkles.
(Side note: Ricotta is our 2 year old Great Pyrenees female)
My 9 year old daughter:
Autumn
Crunchy, crispy autumn leaves
underneath my cold feet.
Neighbors laughing,
Kids playing
in the autumn leaves.
My 11 year old son:
No title
The wind is blowing.
The leaves are falling.
Kids are playing.
I wish winter would never come.
Short and sweet! They really had fun writing these today.
Studied the sound barrier, looked up YouTube videos of planes breaking the sound barrier - sonic boom and all with the cone-shaped vapor cloud. VERY cool!
We talked about the Doppler Effect since we live right next to the train crossings... they immediately knew what I was talking about! We also decided that the sound you hear like at a Nascar race when the cars zoom around the track where the pitch is higher before it gets to you, then lower as it moves away...we decided that was the same thing (Doppler Effect)... even though I couldn't find any info to back it up online.
We tried to find info online on how they put music on tape or CD, but could not find ANY information other than how to burn a CD.
This afternoon for a break from the book type stuff, we took apart an old rotary dial phone and identified the receiver, microphone, speaker, bell/notifier, and saw the other mechanics and wiring.
I think that's it for today.............
After our slow start (I was cleaning in the pantry when I must have sprayed cleaner stuff on exposed wiring - made a big loud pop sound, smoke, etc... had an electrician come...can't do school while a fix-it guy is here.) I think we got a lot accomplished today!
So my 11 year old son, who I assume is NEVER listening to me, shocked the socks off of me today!!
He was out at a friends house and left to skateboard back home when some teenagers asked to see his new skateboard. We bought it for his birthday from a skate ministry team website (www.dodgethis.com) and he loves it. The verse on the bottom is from Revelation 20 (I think... dont have the mental energy right now to look it up...) and it says "Killing the Beast" on it. Its cool... black and red... boys dig it.
Anyway, they asked him what it meant.
Well... remember the post from yesterday - the first day of school, all we did was talk for Bible? Well... God must have REALLY knew what He was doing because Paul was able to actually verbalize about the Beast being Anti-Christ and the end times and the rapture and everything! They kept asking questions, and he kept answering them!
I am so proud of him!! It takes SERIOUS guts to answer questions of a spiritual nature as an ADULT... much less as an 11 year old boy.
Ok... updating from my last post on what I had left to do before school started (today...):
Finish putting away folded laundry and get the dirty laundry caught up. (yeah, but is that EVER really done?? No...)
Designate a notebook for school records such as school-days and books used. (kind of... I have a master binder as of right now that I think I am using for records and such.)
buy (another) new computer mouse
buy new printer ink
make up chore charts for the kiddos
make myself a daily schedule limiting my computer time (limiting computer time as best as I can... but I took a home job entering stuff for a sporting good website about 3 hours a day.)
sort through 10" tall pile of old mail and get rid of stuff we don't need!
make meal menus and master grocery lists- 2 weeks worth to rotate through the year. (yeah... like I thought THAT would get done. I have tried two new recipes on my kids that were well received. We wont talk about how many were ill received.)
purchase some sort of timeline and characters (trying to find used Konos set) (I am thinking I will just create them as we go until I can afford the one Konos has. Not having any luck with a used wall chart!)
Paul and I had a few VERY long talks about houses and such and we have decided that we will buy a MUCH less expensive house so that we can REALLY cut our costs (thanks very much Dave Ramsey... grr. LOL) and be debt free in less than a year (hopefully including our cars!!) and just have our mortgage to pay and regular living expenses! That would be such a huge gigantic relief for us, I think it is really do-able for us to find a nice small cheap house that we can live comfortably in for a few years with that goal in mind.
Our first day of school! Well, we are slowly easing back into school. We did math - - learning the RightStart math method and it seems to be slowly clicking! My kids LOVED the card game (matching - make 10's) and I think if we can end each day's lesson with a game, life will be much easier math-wise!! We also had a VERY long talk about salvation today. 3 of my 4 kids prayed to accept Christ in the past few years, but I have had doubts about my oldest if he really understands what that meant. He is 11 now and keeps saying he wants to get baptized, but can't explain what it means. So we had a GREAT conversation this morning about salvation, the end times, substitutionary sacrifice, and sin. I think it was a good start to the school year. We talked a lot about our expectations for this year and our attitudes towards learning. I think "talking" is a good description of what we did most today!!
Who DOESN'T want to win really cool scripturally based toys??
The Battle for the Toy Box Contest! I entered the Battle for the Toy Box Contest
on the HSB Company Porch. I hope to win
over $100 worth of, Tales of Glory, Bible-based toys
from one2believe!!
Go check it out!!!
My friends in PA... here is the list of stores who are listed at the one2believe website as "will carry" the line!
This next year we will be participating in the Konos co-op online as well as doing Right Start Math (probably) and creative writing on our own.
I am trying to sort out plans for the year as far as a calendar is concerned... factoring in one catch-up day every two weeks, vacation time with the family, and probably the whole month of December off for celebration!
I want to go see the Davy Crockett homestead, drive out to Lancaster to visit a working farm, maybe visit a food production plant (such as the local potato chip place).
Anyone from Southeastern PA know of any other cool, can't-miss fieldtrip ideas? I would like to plan one field trip day per month to give us all a goal.
On a happy side-note, tonight we go walk through a foreclosure home that has only been on the market a few days! I hope the Lord gives us both the same sense of peace about this one and our pre-approval letter comes in in time for the showing!
Well, I learned that no matter how many Sunday School classes you have taught, no matter how many VBS programs you have planned, worked or been in charge of, no matter how many college level missions classes you have taken... none of that prepares you for inner-city missions work.
Oh boy.
It started innocently enough... the church was helping run Upwards Basketball for a church in a nearby city. They needed more help. SURE! Why not! So we signed up to help (the kids and I).
Well, I got there today and immediately knew this was INNER city, folks. I dropped off the youngest in childcare (thank you, Lord!!) and took the older 3 to basketball. They were holding it at this park with a b'ball court attached. First of all, this is SO not a skin-color issue. This is a scary-neighborhood-mean-kids issue. I checked my own kids in, put on my red shirt, and went to start helping. Within the first 5 minutes I witnessed a shoving match between some boys, then my own almost-11-year-old suddenly said this place was "stupid" (red flashing lights for "something happened"). I took him over away from the commotion and asked what happened (like a thousand times before he told me). He finally said this one kid threw a punch at him, but he dodged it and the whole thing was over my son asking if he could play ball with them. The other kid said "no", to which my son says "uh... yes I can... thats why we are here." and the kid tried to punch him. THEN I saw a used condom on the ground right by the playground and there was broken beer bottle glass everywhere that the kids began throwing at one another during the wrap-up time when we share the gospel.
We got out of there SO fast tonight and I could nearly cry over the whole deal. I just sat there thinking, WOW... I really thought this was no big deal. Maybe its just God telling me "Honey, this is not your mission field.".
I'm so sorry, Lord. I really thought I would be able to handle it. I just fear for my kids being in that environment. The kids there are so full of anger and hate and I dont have the skills to handle it. I feel like I failed you, Father.
Trying not to take situations too seriously, living each day for the Lord, trying to figure out how to do this homeschool mom thing!
If you have trouble reading my page, try expanding this screen to "full screen". Sorry for the inconvenience... I am working on figuring out how to fix it!
You and dogs definitely have a lot in common.
You're both goofy, happy, and content with the small things in life.
However, you're definitely not as needy as the average dog. You need your down time occasionally.
At your darkest moments, you feel guilty.
At work and school, you do best when you're researching.
When you love someone, you tend to agree with them often.
In friendship, you are considerate and compromising.
Your ideal careers are: business, research, counseling, promotion, and speaking.
You will leave your mark on the world with discoveries, new information, and teaching people to dream.
Instead, I think I will try to focus on those things that are really important to me and my family and once THOSE things are habitual... add something else.
Happy New Year!
already and it is time for our lease renewal or termination. I have been scouring listings on Craigslist, the local newspaper, and realtor.com for some place else to rent that would give us more room (LOTS more room), and a nice yard as well as a garage space for hubby. 
that overlooks the 3 1/2 acre back yard!!! When I went to go see the house, the kids had a great time playing in the woods and climbing on rocks! There is even a fire pit in the yard! I LOVE campfires!! The drawbacks... there is no fence for the dog and there is no garage, but there is a car port, walk up attic for storage and an unfinished walk-out basement for hubbys tools and stuff.
