What a blessed time I had last night. It was our church's Woman's Christmas concert, and it was so nice. I was a greeter, which to me is always fun. I like saying hi to everyone, and help out those who are 'lost'. The concert itself was beautiful. A friend of mine wrote and directed a short play for it, and it was done soooo well. I just get shocked how much talent she has. Then we had a guest singer/speaker, and she was real good. We had over 950 ladies there. At the beginning of it was an hour of fellowship with the men from our church being our waiters serving us juice, water and snacks. Hubby couldn't help this year, but it's always a lot of fun. It's nice to be 'pampered' a bit like that.
After the concert a group of us ladies went to a local diner and had a blast. Goodness we got silly, I sometimes wonder if they will let us in again. But it was nice to just fellowship, hang with some friends and just enjoy each others company after the concert.
I am so blessed that the Lord has brought us to this church. For those of you who don't know, we kept saying no to the Lord about going to this church. We just didn't want to go to a 'bigger' church and kept driving past it every Sunday for a couple of months after we moved here. Finally, the gas prices jumped so high we 'had' to start going here, but we always knew the Lord was showing us we were to check it out. We just didn't want to listen, but I'm so glad we are here now. We've made such great friends here and we so enjoy helping and Paul enjoys working there. Isn't it great that the Lord knows so much better than we do?
Today has been a nice lazy day. I can't believe it's 4:45pm already. I feel like I just woke up. We are watching college football, I've been working on some crafts and then we have church in a little over an hour. I got my grocery shopping list done today, so tomorrow after lunch we can run to the store real quick. Being it's the holiday's, our food money is pretty low. Thankfully we still have some things from my last shopping, plus it will be a quick and easy shop since it's a lot less than we usually get. But this way we can get some gifts for the kids, and like I said, we have what we need, so we are good.
Guess I should get off the computer and work some more on my crafts before we have to leave tonight. It's pretty chilly out, about 19 degrees out right now and we are to drop pretty low tonight. Lot's of extra blankets tonight.
Goodness, it has been quite a week. Nothing to huge or anything, and things could always be worse, but still enough to wear on me. We've been having problems with our Jeep not wanting to stay started. We've let it go for a while, and then it started to get worse. So finally on Monday we called to get it into a mechanic. We were going back and forth between two different mechanics, one who worked out of his house & one an auto shop. When we called the shop on Monday to see if we could get it in, they said not until Thursday the 3rd. By the time we called back Tuesday morning to actually set up the appointment, they didn't have any openings until Wednesday the 9th. We took it, but we were still checking with the other mechanic who worked out of his house. He gave us a good estimate, and said he could start work on it Tuesday night, so we canceled with the shop and set it up with him. Only to have him call today and say he didn't realize this weekend was Labor Day weekend, and he couldn't get to it until Thursday night.
I have the crying face, because as of Tuesday morning we stopped driving the Jeep. Paul had found an issue in the engine (to long to explain here). We didn't want to cause any/or more damage to it, so we felt it was best not to drive it. Our Jeep is our family car, the only other vehicle we have is Paul's small little pickup truck that only seats 3 (of course there are 4 of us ). Plus the fact that it has no power steering. Call me wimpy if you want, but I like power steering. So I had to take Paul to work a few days this week, stuff all three of us in the truck for playgroup (with no a/c, yes I know, I'm spoiled ) and change different plans we had made. We were suppose to go to friends house for a cookout tonight, but had to have them come over here for pasta instead. Figured Paul would have to ride in the back of the truck tomorrow night so we could get to church (which is only a 3 minute drive) but we weren't sure what we were going to do for Sunday night to get to a party we were invited too. It was too far for Paul to ride in the back.
So to hear today it was going to go from Tuesday to Thursday just made me want to cry. We didn't know if we should try to get it into the shop instead, but couldn't get a hold of them today, so decided to stay with the mechanic we have it set up with. But then this afternoon Paul got a hold of the mechanic to ask if we could drive it or not. He knew all the issues we are having with it, especially the one which made us stop driving it, and the mechanic said go ahead and drive it, it won't damage it at all!!!!! Believe me, those little pictures don't do justice on how excited I really am about it. We still won't drive it too far. To our party on Sunday afternoon and the park will be the farthest. I'll renew our library books online since they are due on Tuesday, the library is a bit too far. Though we won't do damage, Paul is worried I will get stranded somewhere, so I'll keep it close. But I am so thankful that we can use our Jeep.
The Lord is just so awesome and takes care of us so much. During this whole week, especially on Tuesday when I realized we couldn't drive the Jeep, I panicked a bit about what we had in the house. We have our grocery shopping to do tomorrow, so last Tuesday we were running low on some things. In a rush, I ran out Tuesday morning to 'stock up' because I wouldn't be able to get to the store easy enough. but I panicked shopped, and spent more than I should have. And in that spending, I stocked up on bread from the bread store, 5 loaves. We didn't really need it, and would have made it until tomorrow without me buying any, but I just didn't trust it, and 'had' to get it. What I didn't trust was the Lord, and knowing He would take care of us. Every day this week, Paul has brought home bread (very good wheat bread) or hamburger and hot dog buns from work, for free! I am running out of room in our big freezer for all the bread we have now. If I had just trusted the Lord and not shopped out of a panicked mindset, I could have saved some money, and not been so overflowing with bread. Ahhh, lessons learned. We will be eating lots of bread in the next coming weeks, and I think I'll try my hand at making bread pudding. Anyone got a good recipe they want to share?
It's so sweet when the Lord blesses us with something we've never really prayed for, and never truly expected. Paul and I have a master list of things we want to buy if/when we get extra money like bonuses or something. If we don't have the master list, then when we get extra, we tend to impulse spend, frivolously. So we try very hard to look at our list first. On the list are needs, like new shoes or new snow gear for the kids, but other things are just way out wants, like a new tv, couch or dinner room table set. And the last one is something that has slowly been going from a want to a need.
We got our current table and 4 chair set from friends of ours about 10 years ago, and it was 5-8 years old at that time, so it's pushing over 15 years old at least. It's still sturdy, but it's starting to peal and bubble, and just looks old. The chairs have holes in cushion, and are dirty that you can't clean. But truthfully, since we weren't eating on the floor, we just couldn't justify the expense of a new set. So when Paul called today at lunch like he normally does and casually asked, "Do we still want a new table and 6 chair set?" I jumped at it, and said, "YES!"
There was a lady that works with Paul that her and her husband were giving away a 10 year old table and chair set, and they only live about 2 blocks from us. So after dinner we went over to look at it, and instantly liked it. It was very well kept, and it has 6 chairs, but one of the biggest gifts to me was the fact that the middle leaf folds into the table! I have always, always wanted a table like that, but again never thought we could justify the cost of one. I was so blessed when I saw that's how this table was. So we instantly put it all in our truck and took it home.
Thank you Lord for all your wonderful blessings to us, and for the special gift of this new (to us) table and chair set with the folding leaf. I give you all the glory for it.
Here are some pictures of the old table and chair, where you can see it was starting to peal and bubble. Paul had already taken 2 chairs out to the garage before I thought to take some pictures.
Here is our lovely new hunter green table and chair set, it even matches the cookie jar I got for Christmas last year. The other two chairs are in the garage waiting for our first guests. Maybe this Friday.
I feel like things are swirling through my mind the past week or so. Not necessarily bad things, just seems like a lot of things. A lot of it is personal things the Lord has been showing me in my life. This morning my family went to our church's annual service in the park, I stayed home with a stuffy head. But I had an awesome time with the Lord while they were gone. Most of it will stay between Him and me (and my hubby), but I would like to share how He showed me how I can be so prideful. I tend to be a perfectionist, and I want everything to be perfect and 'right'. I was always justifying how I felt thinking, "I want things perfect for the Lord. I want to be a good witness and I want everyone to see the Lord." Yea, whatever, that's not why I am a perfectionist. I want everything to be perfect so people will look at me and think I have it all together. I was deluding myself thinking I was doing it all for the Lord, for His glory, but I was really just doing it for my glory. It's sad and hard when the Lord shows you how arrogant you've been. I've been a 'self-confident fool', that's how the Amplified version says fool lots of time, 'self-confident fool'. That's what I've been. It was humbling to hear, but you know what, in a way it was freeing too. It was freeing to know that the Lord really doesn't want me to be perfect. He wants to show Himself through me even in my failures and weaknesses. And He'll show it, not me.
But I also have some, just normal life things, swirling around. Sarah's 14th birthday is this Wednesday. We've already bought her birthday presents and they are wrapped. She's picked a local restaurant she wants to go to for dinner, and it will be very yummy. Then the next day, Thursday, we start school. It's hard to believe it's time to start, but we are all a bit excited too. We are planning a weekend trip to see my family soon, hopefully next weekend. Plus some back to school parties coming up. Our homeschool group is starting to meet again (we usually take the summer off from monthly meetings), and we have our back to school picnic next month. Yep, I guess I can see why my mind is swirling a bit.
And one more 'big' thing to make it swirl, we are looking at possibly putting an offer on another house. We are a bit more relaxed about this one, though I guess no matter what there is a bit of stress. The house itself needs some TLC, but not much. We looked at it when we first started looking for houses, but it didn't really appeal to us. It smelled like smoke, the previous owners must have smoked. And just having to take out all the carpet and paint with Kilz to get rid of the smoke smell, made it very expensive to buy it. But it's always been one that just sort of 'pulled' on me. So about 2 months ago the price for it dropped. That got my interest up a bit, but we were looking at that other house, so nothing came of it. We'll, it's still sitting out there, on the market, empty, so we decided to look at it again yesterday. It's funny, we had such a different perspective when we first started looking at houses months ago. And though we are not settling for things, our perspective has changed. And you know what, this house wasn't that bad after all. The biggest thing was there was no smoke smell. Believe me the house hadn't been aired out or anything (it had that closed house smell to it), and I am very sensitive with smoke smell (I'm an ex-smoker). We, Paul our realtor and I, were all walking around shocked we couldn't smell anything. The fact that the smoke smell is gone, is huge for us. The other things that had bothered us seemed little now, and so we are taking the next step.
This again is a module home, and though we have already checked and it has only been moved once (which is the reason we lost the other one, it had been moved more than once), there are other issues that might prevent us from getting it. We have since found out that insurance around here is usually higher for module homes, and the property is considered to be on a flood plain, which means even higher insurance. Our insurance agent is going to give us a quote tomorrow, and we'll see how high it is. Then we'll give a very low-ball offer and see what happens. There a lot more issues I don't want to go into right now, but lets just say, if this house goes through, and we actually get it with the tax rebate offered right now, it will be all the Lord, not us. It's completely crazy that we are even thinking of it, yet we feel to take step by step, until the Lord either closes a door or gives us the house.
So that's what we've been up too. I've also been getting busy with some website work again. Nothing new yet, but I need to start working with my site more, learning some new things, so that will be keeping me busy this fall and winter too.
But right now, I need to get off the computer and work on some crochet projects I'm working on for Christmas gifts I'm giving to family. Hope you have all had a blessed weekend.
Well, I think we have finally worked through our emotions on not buying a house this summer. My heart was really set on setting up a new house this summer. I was planning on packing & moving, and looking forward to painting and setting up 'my' house. Once that fell through, I went into a bit of a funk dealing with it. I was just blah and bored. I just wasn't doing what I wanted to do, which was move, and it was hard to get motivated to do anything. But I kept giving it to the Lord, and getting the things done around here that needed to get done. Then finally on Tuesday I bought a piece of wood for our broken bedroom window (to hold it open) and I put a new screen in the window, and that helped tremendously. I know that sounds strange, so I'll explain. I was putting off doing anything in this house we rent because I felt it wasn't our home anymore. I didn't want to put a lot of time or energy in it, I wanted to do that in my own home. Then our house feel through, and with it came the very real possibility that we won't be buying or moving at all. I still didn't want to think of this house, that has been our home for almost 2 years, as a good home anymore. I was getting irritated by little things that use to never bother me. The home hadn't changed at all, but my outlook on the home had. I was focusing on all the things I didn't like about this home, and refused to continue to make it 'my' home. That all changed on Tuesday.
After our play day at the park, I made myself go to Home Depot and buy some wood and have it cut to size to fit our broken window in the bedroom, and to fix the screen. I had been putting it off for a long time, then figured, we're moving, why bother. Not the best attitude to have. After my time with the Lord, He reminded me, even if we moved, we shouldn't leave the window screen in that kind of condition. Plus I needed to accept that this is still our home, and I should be working on it as I've done for the past year and a half. Though it seems small, it was a big step for me. I worked on the screen in the afternoon, then Paul brought up some ideas for some new bookcases we need for the house. We still have about 5 boxes of books in the garage that we could never unpack before. We've decided to save up some money and get another bookcase and unpack those books. We are living in this house, and we are going to continue to make it our home. And if the Lord brings a house for us to buy, then great, but we are not going to stop our living in this home, waiting for that to happen. We feel better already.
But in the midst of working on the screen, I wasn't bent over properly and my back started hurting. Nothing too bad, and it seemed to be fine by night time. Wednesday morning I woke up and when I bent over to get a t-shirt out of my dresser drawer, I felt my back muscles pull. I still went for my morning work, and did my work out, but as the day progressed, I felt it get tighter and tighter. It wasn't too bad when I went to sleep last night, but today it's still hurting me a bit. Of course I did over do it a bit too much this morning. My thought was to get a dinner done early, when my back was feeling o.k., so we would have a dinner tonight, unlike last night. So what do I do? I make chicken pasta salad for dinner, salsa, french bread, egg salad for lunch, ran to WM and picked up some milk & cheese, and a new fan for Paulie's room. I cleaned up our old fan and put together the new fan, so our house is nice and cool now. So I got a lot more done than I planned, but now I can rest the rest of the day. My back does still feel sore, but hopefully it will continue to heal.
Our VBS will be starting July 13th, and like last year, I'm helping make some things on the computer, besides helping at the VBS too with administration. It feels good to get busy with some other things, and since I really shouldn't be on my feet too much (ok, well except for this morning ), it's been keeping me busy on the couch. I'm also continuing to work on my shawl which is now the size for a baby. I don't really like big crochet projects, I like to finish things quickly, so this is a bit hard. But I really like how it's looking and I really want to use it this fall, so I keep plugging along. I do a few rows every day. Once I get off the computer today, I'll do some more.
We are staying home this year for 4th of July. We weren't sure if we should go to my family's house or not. But my sister, who usually has the 4th of July party, has to work all weekend. And we've been wondering how our town here celebrates it, so we were praying, trying to decide what to do. Then Sarah, who helps out with VBS too, joined up to help build a float that will be in our local parade. She was also asked if she would want to be in the parade too. She was quite excited, and that helped us decide to stay here in town. I really like that she is stepping up to help with things, and I really would like to see the fireworks out here. It will be different, but fun.
We'll have a few weeks to relax after the 4th and VBS, then I'll start looking at our school stuff, and start lessons in the middle of August. Even though it's not the summer we had planned, it's still going to be a full, fun summer. Now if I can just get my back to feel better, I could actually enjoy it a bit more.
We have had a very blessed weekend. Our Friday was so great. Paul took the day off, so we slept in a bit. Then went to Red Robin for lunch. Our first time there, and it was fun and filling. After that we went up into the mountains and went shooting for a bit. It was windy up there and cloudy, so we didn't stay too long. Then we went for a drive further up in the mountains. It was a beautiful drive and funny how there was still snow up there in parts. Our town has lots of windmills up there for generating energy, and they are cool to see. Here's a slide show of our day in the mountains. Plus, the other day Paul and Paulie were playing catch, so I put that out there too. (Please let me know if the slide show doesn't work).
We had an awesome church service last night. I don't think I've seen so many people at our church before. The worship was great, and the teaching very encouraging. I'm so thankful for Resurrection Sunday, and that Jesus died for my sins and rose again. Thank you Lord.
We are taking this week off of school, and I'm really looking forward to that. Paulie's birthday is Tuesday, and we tried to get him his new bike but they were out of stock. So we'll try again on his actual birthday. But he now knows he's getting a new, bigger bike, and he is very excited about it. I'll get some pictures out when he gets it.
We had a great dinner tonight. Honey ham, mashed potatoes, deviled eggs, dinner rolls, corn and chocolate chip cookies for a snack. I'm still full from it, but I'm about to go get some cookies soon.
This blog is so I can share my journey with the Lord, my journey as a wife and mother, and my journey as a homeschool mom. I pray that you will see the Lord in my life through happy and sad times, and that this blog glorifies the Lord.
This is an award and tag free zone, thank you.
The concert itself was beautiful. A friend of mine wrote and directed a short play for it, and it was done soooo well. I just get shocked how much talent she has. Then we had a guest singer/speaker, and she was real good. We had over 950 ladies there. At the beginning of it was an hour of fellowship with the men from our church being our waiters serving us juice, water and snacks. Hubby couldn't help this year, but it's always a lot of fun. It's nice to be 'pampered' a bit like that.
But it was nice to just fellowship, hang with some friends and just enjoy each others company after the concert.
We just didn't want to go to a 'bigger' church and kept driving past it every Sunday for a couple of months after we moved here. Finally, the gas prices jumped so high we 'had' to start going here, but we always knew the Lord was showing us we were to check it out. We just didn't want to listen, but I'm so glad we are here now. We've made such great friends here and we so enjoy helping and Paul enjoys working there. Isn't it great that the Lord knows so much better than we do? 
But this way we can get some gifts for the kids, and like I said, we have what we need, so we are good.
We took it, but we were still checking with the other mechanic who worked out of his house. He gave us a good estimate, and said he could start work on it Tuesday night, so we canceled with the shop and set it up with him. Only to have him call today and say he didn't realize this weekend was Labor Day weekend, and he couldn't get to it until Thursday night. 
). Plus the fact that it has no power steering. 
I was deluding myself thinking I was doing it all for the Lord, for His glory, but I was really just doing it for my glory. It's sad and hard when the Lord shows you how arrogant you've been. I've been a 'self-confident fool', that's how the Amplified version says fool lots of time, 'self-confident fool'. That's what I've been. It was humbling to hear, but you know what, in a way it was freeing too. It was freeing to know that the Lord really doesn't want me to be perfect. He wants to show Himself through me even in my failures and weaknesses. And He'll show it, not me.
We've already bought her birthday presents and they are wrapped. She's picked a local restaurant she wants to go to for dinner, and it will be very yummy. Then the next day, Thursday, we start school. It's hard to believe it's time to start, but we are all a bit excited too. We are planning a weekend trip to see my family soon, hopefully next weekend. Plus some back to school parties coming up. Our homeschool group is starting to meet again (we usually take the summer off from monthly meetings), and we have our back to school picnic next month. Yep, I guess I can see why my mind is swirling a bit. 
