This looks so neat, Stitchery For Girls. I have downloaded it, though I haven't read it yet. But I've always been interested in hand stitching, so this caught my eye. I will probably try it too, not just for Sarah.
Things have been going good so far this week. All our normal things so I won't bore you with details you already know. We did bring the kids bikes to playgroup at the park today, and they loved it. I can't get them into my Jeep, but we switched vehicles with Paul's pickup (duh, don't know why I never thought of that before). Anyway, it worked great. Except that Paul's pickup has no power steering, talk about needing some upper arm strength. So now every Tuesday, for the rest of the summer while playgroup is at the park, Paul will take the Jeep to work, we'll keep his pickup and take the bikes to the park. The kids are so excited.
I've been reading a book I got from the library, it's been really encouraging. It talks about the lies we believe, which effect how we live, and how to replace them with God's truth. It's funny, as I'm reading it, I know the things they are listing are lies like "I need to be perfect", yet I know I think that in my own life. I don't give myself room for error, or anyone else. It has been so encouraging to see the words and read them myself. For some reason, that has been helping. Truthfully I'm sure it's just the time the Lord wanted to show it to me, and it now is finally making sense. I won't say that I've just dropped all the lies I fall for but it's a start and I'm feeling blessed by it. I'm getting ready to read a Chuck Swindoll book I got at the library next.
So that's about it. It's family movie night here tonight, so I'm keeping this short. I'm going to try to read that E-book on stitchery soon, I hope I like it.
I literally have only about 5 minutes to get this out, but I have received my 1000th comment!!! And who was that commenter you ask? Why it is one of the sweetest bloggers I've ever known and was on of the first people to ever give me a comment when I started blogging a year ago. It's Jenn!!!! Thank you Jenn for always being a regular commenter on my blogs. I look forward to them all the time. I hope you enjoy your bookmark.
Well, my tooth is doing pretty good, and I'm blessed that I've made it through the weekend. I have a dentist appointment tomorrow afternoon. I actually think its a different tooth than the one that was capped, I might have a cavity in the tooth next to it. Either way, between washing my mouth out with salt water and taking Ibuprofen, I've been doing good.
I'm only 5 comments away from 1000. It's funny, because on my other blog, I'm over 2000 comments, I'm not sure why on this blog I feel excited about 1000. I guess because its a milestone. But since I have never given anything away for such milestones, I thought I would do it with this one. It's nothing much, but I have made a crocheted bookmark that I will give to the 1000th commenter. Here's a picture of it.
Our church's VBS starts tomorrow, it will be a fun, busy, crazy week. Today we will be going to the church and help set things up. Then we'll go back again tonight for a worship and communion service for VBS. I'm looking forward to that. I'm going to try and get online this week, but I just don't know how much I will be able to. VBS is over by noon, but I'll be working with the pictures I've taken, the newsletter and just running my house somewhat normal too. So if you don't hear from me much next week, don't worry, I'll be back the following week when VBS is over.
I have to share what a sweet gift I received yesterday in the mail. Sweet Marla made me a beautiful wreath for my house. I told her a general idea of colors, and she matched them beautifully. I can't believe how sweet she is to have made this for me, and I just have to share what great work she does.
Here I am taking it out of the box.
Here's a close up of it.
And here is where we hung it. Isn't it just beautiful.
Thank you Marla for making it for me. It's beautiful and matches the house great.
OK, well I need to get going. I hope you all have a great weekend. I'll try and update about my tooth and 1000th commenter when I can.
I wasn't going to put an entry out today, but I went online to find a crochet pattern and I thought I would put one out real quick. I can't believe how I have no desire to blog. I've had blog block before, not knowing what to blog. Or too busy and having no time to blog, but I've never had a time I didn't want to blog, except for now. I really have lost the desire to put entries out, though I think of all my online friends and I wonder what they are up to, and I know you wonder what I'm up to. So I'll try to put out short entries even when I don't feel like it.
Paulie had a great birthday and our monthly homeschool meeting last night was awesome. We brought Paulie's birthday cupcakes to share, and they were gone by the time the meeting was over. The principle said no school since it was Paulie's birthday, we all liked that one. So today was time to get back into the swing of things, and I will admit it wasn't the best of days. There were lots of attitudes todays and it was quite wearing on me. Paul took care of things when he got home, and things are better, but it still tired me out. Have you ever hit a point where you've helped a child with a subject so much, that you've over helped? Well we have, and now that we are making that child do more work, they are not liking it. We know this is what we need to do, and it will continue all summer, as this child is behind in this subject, but it's tiring at the beginning working on changing the attitude we allowed to grow.
I've had a hard day, one of those days you just want to cry and curl up and not do anything. But we went to homeschool playgroup (which Paul encouraged saying I needed to be around some friends ). He was right, and it was very encouraging. The ladies listened and encouraged me and reminded me that tomorrow is a new day. So we will go at it again tomorrow, and work through any and all attitudes then too. We will keep going with the Lord's strength, and He will guide us through this time. I know things will work out for His glory and our child's blessing. It's just the starting of it that's hard.
I finished my crocheted bookmark with the 'right' single crochet stitch, I don't see much of a difference. But it is nice knowing I did the stitch properly. If I get a chance I'll put pictures out someday, just not today. But now I want to start another crochet project, which I'm looking for a pattern online now. So this is going to be a short entry as I want to read a few blogs, but mainly I want to find a pattern. Have a blessed evening (or day depending on when you read this ).
I spent most of the day in the kitchen, and I'll be going back in a bit to make dinner rolls. The family was missing my homemade snacks we've had around the house the past few weeks, so I had to do some baking today. I made cinnamon rolls, chocolate chip pan cookies, muffins and the dough for the dinner rolls is in the bread maker right now. I've never made these dinner rolls before, I'll let you know how it goes. Sarah had quite a bit of 'home ec' today, helping me out in the kitchen.
The kids are outside right now riding their bikes (like Paulie would be doing anything else ). Paulie was having such a hard time getting through the day. Plus, when we woke up there was a dusting of snow on the ground. So at first it didn't look like there would be much bike riding today. But by this afternoon it's partly sunny and around 40. So outside they ran to enjoy the weather and ride on their bikes. We are suppose to get up to the 60's in a couple of days. I so hope that the weather man is right, the first 60's of the season, it would be great.
Now, here is an embarrassing yet funny thing I realized last night. OK, you know the bookmark I made that I'm giving Paulie, right? Here's a picture of it.
I used variegated thread, so it's hard to see each exact stitch, but the first and last row and the edging is mainly single crochets. I think I mentioned that I picked up some books at the library about crocheting and cross-stitching. I'm looking through the books, trying to find some designs and such. I look at the 'how to's' on making a single crochet stitch. I read it and re-read it, not really believing what I saw. I've been doing the single crochet stitch wrong this whole time. So I call my mom to see if I was reading it right. She agrees that yes, I have been doing the stitch wrong (with a little chuckle in her voice ). I'm not even sure how long I've been doing it wrong. I'm sure at one point in time I was doing it right, but not for a long time. I even remember when I was showing Sarah a crochet design recently I was showing her the single crochet stitch. She asked me if that was the right way to do it, and I said yes. See, my aunt, her great-aunt, taught her how to crochet, so she knew what I was doing it wrong. But since mom said it was right, she believed me. The funny thing is, the bookmark actually looks good with my made-up stitch in it. I'm sure somewhere the stitch is called something, though I have yet to find if the stitch I made up was a real stitch. So around here we are calling it the JoAnn stitch.
I had to share an embarrassing moment with you all. I am starting another bookmark, which I had planned to do before I found out I was doing the stitch wrong. I actually want one for myself, but this time I'm doing the stitch 'right'. I want to see what the difference between the two bookmarks are. If I can show the difference in a picture I will.
So that's been my day and I have woman's bible study tonight. I'll take a baking break tomorrow, then bake Paulie's cupcakes on Saturday. I hope you are all having a great and blessed day.
It looks like it's definite that we have to give up our laptop. My friend said that is the power supply, which is loose so it's not registering that it's plugged in. And because of that it's not charging the battery. I use to be able to wiggle it a little, or move it 'just' right and it would start charging. But that doesn't work anymore. I'm hoping to be able to get it into a local computer shop for a free estimate. But, unless they open it up, see that the power box is just a little loose, tighten it and say, "Oh it just needed to be tightened" and then only charge me $10 or $20, it won't be fixed anytime soon.
It's been quite an adjustment for me without the laptop, well, and adjustment for all of us. I have to plan my time now. All four of us use the computer, the kids even more now. And in the fall it will be even more. So four people on one computer, lets just say, it's not fun. I do still keep praying that we'll be able to get the laptop fixed, but I have accepted that we probably won't anytime soon. So please don't take it personal when I don't leave as many comments or stop by so much on cbox's. I don't know if I'll be putting as many blog entries out, I'll just have to wait and see how it goes.
On Thursday our water heater started going. We called our landlord and he had a plumber come out Thursday night to look at it. It was pretty well shot, so the landlord had him put in a new one. The plumber couldn't get it put in until Friday morning, but I was blessed it was in the morning. So on Friday we were without water for about 2 hours. It didn't go too bad, since we were aware of it, we planned for things, and it went fine. It's good to have a new water heater, and it might even help our electric bill. It's an electric water heater, and it's in the wall of Sarah's bedroom closet, behind the wall. So it's not easy to get to. We have to empty her closet and unscrew the screws that is holding the wall up, and take the wall off. We never looked at it when we moved it, and the plumber said they had it turned up to the hottest setting. We knew it got very hot, but never really thought about it. So now that the new one is set to a more normal range, it should help out with our bill.
I have finished my first filet crochet bookmark. I will say, after reading up on what filet crochet is, I don't really consider this design an actual filet crochet, but I like it a lot. It was very easy to do, though I didn't like the tail. I'll do that different next time. But here is the picture I promised, what do you think?
I thought it turned out o.k. I usually use flickr to post pictures on my blog, but I've signed up for a photobucket account. At first I didn't like it, because it wasn't resizing like I told it too. But I got it to work, so I'll keep trying it for a bit. I like the ease of flickr, so I'm not sure I'll stick with photobucket, but I like to try new things, so I'll keep playing with it for a while.
I think now you have been caught up on my past couple of days. I hope you all are having a blessed weekend. I know we'll get the computer schedule worked out soon, and I'll be able to blog and visit more. Be patient with me. Thanks.
Well, I used those sites that Sally gave me to match colors. I tried making graphics, and I think I did pretty well putting it all together. What do you think? Does it look o.k.? I went with spring type colors. I will leave it for while and see if I like it. Tell me what you think.
We are on Spring break!!! The kids worked real hard this morning and finished up school early. It feels good to be on a break. I think we all need it. The weather so far is nice, and we have a good weekend coming up. Though I do feel like I might be getting the cold the kids have. But so far its not too bad, we'll see how it goes.
I went to bible study tonight, it was good. We are learning about encouraging one another, and right now it's been talking about how God encourages us through His Word. I'm really getting to know the ladies, and feel like I'm making some friends. It's a true blessing to be there. And it's a real encouragement.
I have most of our school curriculum ordered. It feels so good to have that done. The only thing I'm waiting on is math for Paulie. Teaching Textbooks is coming out with a Math 4 this summer and I want to see if Paulie is ready for that level or not. I need to see the demo, and the placement test before I decide. Otherwise we'll stick with Saxon for another year. But other than that one thing I have everything ordered.
That's about it for the past couple of days. I'm looking forward to this week off to play with my graphics software and work on my filet crochet. When I finish my crochet project I'll make sure I put out some pictures. Have a blessed night.
We have been having a good couple of days. Church on Saturday night was great, we made some new friends. It's funny for months we haven't really known that many people, so we just leave. Now, we actually were talking with a couple different people at once. I'm not saying this bragging, I'm saying it as a blessing. It is truly what we have been praying for. Next weekend they are having two big Easter Sunday services, so there won't be any Saturday night service. We are going to try to get there real early, so that means leaving home earlier than me and the kids are use to. But it's going to be a blessed day and I am looking forward to it.
We have also decided to go visit my family back where we use to live. We haven't been back there since we moved 5 months ago. As you've read, my family has come out here once and a while, so we have seen each other. We decided since there's no church on Saturday night, and it's Easter weekend, this would be a good time. My mom is excited, and so are the kids. It will be good. We do miss our family, and though it's hard for us to live out there, we do miss the beauty that's there. It feels weird to know we are going back, but I'm excited too.
We are suppose to go to homeschool playgroup tomorrow, but I'm not sure if we will. Paulie had a cold last week, and it's down to just sniffles, but now Sarah has the cold. And if it goes the way Paulie's did, tomorrow she'll be extremely stuffy, pretty hard to run around and play. Plus, I don't want to get anyone else sick. Also, we want everyone healthy for this weekend. So we might take tomorrow off. I'll have to wait and see how she feels. But I am blessed, please know there is not bit of complaining here. I've read how bad other families have had it with illnesses, and ours is practically nothing. I'll let you know if we make it or not.
Remember me telling you about my new Paint Shop Pro program? That's how I made my signature, and I'm having a great time playing with it. There is just one issue I'm having, I'm not the artistic type and because of that I'm having a hard time coming up with graphic ideas. I am truly quite bummed about this. I'm not really sure what I was thinking when I bought it. I mean, I've never had artistic thoughts with colors and shapes. Did I think that owning this program would all of sudden make me artistic? I think that's what I thought. I'm still having a fun time with it. I make a few graphics here and there. I'm mainly using them on my lounge nook. Because I don't have to put together a theme there. I can just change the background when I feel like it. Here, well, I would have to put a theme together, and I just can't figure out, artistically, how to do that. I am getting the idea of how the program runs, and it's a great photo editing program. I haven't used it as much as I should, but I have played with some photos, and it's been fun. But every few days I get on my laptop to do some 'craft' time on my laptop. I figure making graphics is a type of craft. But I get on, I look at the blank screen (like a blank canvas I guess) and I'm at a loss. What colors should I put together, what shapes? Should it be a picture or just fun designs? Oh, it's so hard to want to be artistic, and yet not have any natural instinct with it. I guess I'll just keep plugging along. Trying to figure out which colors go with what, and how it looks. The one good things is my husband is great at telling me if colors go together or not. He use to work in a factory that made drapery for expo shows. He helped manage the factory floor, and worked with lots of different colors. So he's always good at telling me if colors go good together. Now I just need to figure out some shapes or themes or something to do with those colors. I'll keep trying, maybe someday I'll come up with something.
OK, I have decided to put my muffin recipe I talked about yesterday out on my blog. I have changed it a little, which I think helps with the copyright thing. Plus I did a search, and found the company I originally got the recipe from, so I'll link to them. I'll write the original recipe out first, then I'll tell you my changes. I hope you enjoy it.
Cinnamon Raisin-Bran Bread From Hodgson Mill
1 1/2 cups unbleached flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 1/2 cups wheat bran
1 1/2 cups raisins
1/4 cup soft butter
1 1/2 cups hot water
1 egg or 2 egg whites
1 tsp. vanilla
Preheat oven to 375. Stir together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon.
Combine in a separate bowl wheat bran, raisins, butter and hot water. Mix until butter melts. Add egg and vanilla. Mix well. Add the mixed dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, stirring until all ingredients are moistened. Put in a greased loaf pan and bake for 50-60 minutes, until done. (I'm pretty sure this is the original time, I've made it as muffins, and that's how I copied it, so I don't remember the original time for baking it as bread.)
OK, now I know I said muffins, and that's what I do. I have found most non-yeast bread recipes (I've never tried with yeast bread recipes) can easily be made into muffins. Just put them in muffin tins and cut the baking time in half, which is what I do.
I double the recipe, and I use eggs, not egg whites. I spray the muffin tins and fill about 3/4 to 100% full. Bake for about 25-30 minutes.
I store them in the fridge, and I don't know exactly how long they will last, since we eat them all within a week. We usually warm them up in the microwave and put butter on them, yum. Plus, I don't always use that name brand of wheat bran. Actually, I buy my wheat bran in bulk and I have a 25 gallon container to store it in. Because we go through it so fast, it's cheaper that way.
Enjoy the recipe, and I'll try to take a picture next time of them in the oven.
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.
We did bring the kids bikes to playgroup at the park today, and they loved it. I can't get them into my Jeep, but we switched vehicles with Paul's pickup (duh, don't know why I never thought of that before). Anyway, it worked great. Except that Paul's pickup has no power steering, talk about needing some upper arm strength. 
So now every Tuesday, for the rest of the summer while playgroup is at the park, Paul will take the Jeep to work, we'll keep his pickup and take the bikes to the park. The kids are so excited.
And who was that commenter you ask? Why it is one of the sweetest bloggers I've ever known and was on of the first people to ever give me a comment when I started blogging a year ago. It's 
I've had blog block before, not knowing what to blog. Or too busy and having no time to blog, but I've never had a time I didn't want to blog, except for now. I really have lost the desire to put entries out, though I think of all my online friends and I wonder what they are up to, and I know you wonder what I'm up to. So I'll try to put out short entries even when I don't feel like it.
So today was time to get back into the swing of things, and I will admit it wasn't the best of days. There were lots of attitudes todays and it was quite wearing on me. Paul took care of things when he got home, and things are better, but it still tired me out. Have you ever hit a point where you've helped a child with a subject so much, that you've over helped? Well we have, and now that we are making that child do more work, they are not liking it. We know this is what we need to do, and it will continue all summer, as this child is behind in this subject, but it's tiring at the beginning working on changing the attitude we allowed to grow. 
). He was right, and it was very encouraging. The ladies listened and encouraged me and reminded me that tomorrow is a new day. So we will go at it again tomorrow, and work through any and all attitudes then too. We will keep going with the Lord's strength, and He will guide us through this time. I know things will work out for His glory and our child's blessing. It's just the starting of it that's hard.
My friend said that is the power supply, which is loose so it's not registering that it's plugged in. And because of that it's not charging the battery. I use to be able to wiggle it a little, or move it 'just' right and it would start charging. But that doesn't work anymore. I'm hoping to be able to get it into a local computer shop for a free estimate. But, unless they open it up, see that the power box is just a little loose, tighten it and say, "Oh it just needed to be tightened" and then only charge me $10 or $20, it won't be fixed anytime soon.
I'm still having a fun time with it. I make a few graphics here and there. I'm mainly using them on my lounge nook. Because I don't have to put together a theme there. I can just change the background when I feel like it. Here, well, I would have to put a theme together, and I just can't figure out, artistically, how to do that. I am getting the idea of how the program runs, and it's a great photo editing program. I haven't used it as much as I should, but I have played with some photos, and it's been fun. But every few days I get on my laptop to do some 'craft' time on my laptop. I figure making graphics is a type of craft. But I get on, I look at the blank screen (like a blank canvas I guess) and I'm at a loss. What colors should I put together, what shapes? Should it be a picture or just fun designs? Oh, it's so hard to want to be artistic, and yet not have any natural instinct with it. I guess I'll just keep plugging along. Trying to figure out which colors go with what, and how it looks. The one good things is my husband is great at telling me if colors go together or not. He use to work in a factory that made drapery for expo shows. He helped manage the factory floor, and worked with lots of different colors. So he's always good at telling me if colors go good together. Now I just need to figure out some shapes or themes or something to do with those colors. I'll keep trying, maybe someday I'll come up with something.
