Musings of An Earthenvessel - Homeschool Blogger

Honey Bear's Apron!

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:57:00 -0600

www.homeschoolblogger.com/earthenvessel/

Mrs. Bee just sent me the cutest pictures of her and Honey Bear wearing their aprons!! I just love them!!

Isn't she a cutie patootie?? Looks just like her mama!! They are standing in the kitchen of the house where Mrs. Bee works. Mrs. Bee had to bake a turkey today for a Boy Scouts Thanksgiving dinner tonight. But she also had to work so, she made the turkey at work. I'm so glad they have their aprons to wear for this!

My cup is filled!!

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:03:00 -0600

www.homeschoolblogger.com/earthenvessel/

I have realized that one of the things that motivates me and fills my cup is being creative. I guess taking picture of my creations and posting them does as well! Today I filled my cup by making an apron for my sweet little friend Baby Bear. Actually her new nickname is Honey Bear because she is outgrowing Baby Bear.

I'm very pleased with how her apron turned out! It is made to match one I made for her mama for Christmas. I already gave Mrs. Bee her apron so she can wear it to do her holiday baking. Now Honey Bear can wear hers too! I can't wait to get pictures of HB wearing this!!

Proud Mama!

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:02:00 -0600

www.homeschoolblogger.com/earthenvessel/

Yesterday morning Knight #1 was asking me to look for an online book club for him. I looked at him and asked, "Why don't you just start your own??" You should have seen his eyes light up! He sat down almost immediately and wrote up a blurb for it outlining what he wanted to do and what age kids it would be good for. I then posted it to the forum on our homeschool support site. Would you believe that he already has 8 kids who want to sign up?? I'm so excited for him!

He decided that the first book they will read and discuss will be Wishbone, The Treasure of Skeleton Reef. Does anyone remember the Wishbone series on PBS? It was about a cute little Jack Russel Terrier who had a tendency to daydream about classic books. Well this is the same Wishbone only in a Mystery series.

They will start reading on November 30th and read two chapters between Monday and Thursday. On Thursday, Knight #1 will e-mail a list of 3 questions about the chapters they read to each participant. They will have till Sunday night to e-mail back their responses.

I am just so pleased with how Knight #1 has taken the initiative in this. A big thank you to Mrs. Bee who offered advice to him on how to run the book club. She is so gifted in that area and I am so NOT. This should be such a wonderful learning experience for Knight #1. Beyond the books he'll be reading. He'll also be learning valuable skills, like how to work with others, how to be a leader and how to administrate.

Our new routine

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:09:00 -0600

www.homeschoolblogger.com/earthenvessel/

I have come to the shocking conclusion that computers and TV distract us from our homeschooling! Gasp!! I know you are just as shocked as I am by this revelation!

So as a solution to this problem, we have started a new policy in our house. NO TV or computer will be turned on until after schoolwork and all chores are done. Daddy is of course exempt from this rule. I even found a new Bible reading plan so that I don't have to do my reading online.

Today was our first day implementing this new plan. It wasn't without some grumbling from the kids and yelling on my part. I'm trying really hard to do better! We did get a lot done though! And I can see how this is going to be a very good thing for us!!

We don't have a chore chart/list made up yet so for today I just verbally gave them each chores to do. Make sure your room is clean, go clear out the drainer and make sure the dishes are done, etc. This was after we got school done of course. I also had to get onto the kids for assuming they were done and jumping onto a computer. I told them, "NO ONE gets on a computer or game until I tell them they may!"

I spent a lot of time in training and inspecting work today. I'm sure that will be the norm for a while yet. However, I am hopeing and praying that eventually as the kids get used to this and learn how to do their chores properly, it will just be a matter of inspecting and then releasing them. They were all done and on the computers/games and I still had MY chores yet to do! Sigh. I also want to work towards them being self motivated in getting their chores done. That may be a loooong time off yet, but one can always hope!

As for me, I had to keep reminding myself not to turn on my laptop. It just has become such an automatic thing for me. It was nice to be able to tell myself, you can get your "fix" later today after things have gotten done! I am pleased with the start we have made and looking forward to seeing wonderful changes in our home and attitudes as a result!!

Praise God!!!

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 13:37:00 -0600

www.homeschoolblogger.com/earthenvessel/

I'm sitting here with a blanket over my bare feet because the breeze wafting in from our open windows is so cold!! Yay!!! I am sooo very thankful for cooler weather every time it comes to Florida which isn't often enough for me!

Here is a quote for you to chew on!

"God is most glorified in me when I am most satisfied in Him!" John Piper.

I am finally getting to listen to Desiring God. Oh, my goodness!! I'm going to have to get the print version of this book so that I can highlight passages and go back to read them again! God wants us, no commands us to enjoy HIM!!

Psalm 37: ⁴ Delight yourself in the LORD
and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Piper quotes scripture after scripture that backs up this truth! This so enhances what I've been learning in The Lord's Table!! Praise You Lord!!!

Praise God from whom all blessings flow!!

Annual PPEA Ladies Tea

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:56:00 -0600

www.homeschoolblogger.com/earthenvessel/

Tuesday night was our annual PPEA Ladies Tea. It was such a sweet time of refreshment and laughter! Each lady brought a treat to share and the room was decorated in fall colors and decorations.

Many of us had agreed to be table hostesses. Our job was to keep our table's tea pots full of hot water and to keep the conversations flowing. We had a list of questions at our disposal to help us to keep everyone involved in the conversation. My table and I hear many others didn't even need the questions. The conversations just flowed natrually. I guess you get a bunch of women together and we're GOING to talk!! LOL

The Lord graciously seated 2 moms at my table who have Asperger children! How cool is that??? Like a friend said to me, "The organizers didn't have a seating plan but God did!!"

My sweet new friend and fellow Aspie mom, Lori. Doreen is sitting next to her on the left.

Here are Cathy and Doreen. It was such a pleasure to visit with them during the tea!

On the other side of the table were Tammy and her sister. Tammy is the other Aspie mom who was at my table.

These two ladies did such a wonderful job of welcoming everyone and getting them to a seat!

Sorry this pic turned out so dark, but sweet Cindy did a fabulous job emceeing the event.

While we ate our goodies, we were entertained by a hilarious skit! Neoka emceed a hysterical Homeschool Mom's Pagent! Each of the contestants represented a different personality of homeschool moms. We have left to right, Mrs. Stressed Out Homeschool Mom, Mrs. Social Butterfly Homeschool Mom, Mrs. Hurry Up Homeschool Mom, Mrs. Information Please Homeschool Mom, Mrs. Messy Homeschool Mom, Mrs. Traditional Homeschool Mom, Mrs. Homeschool Moment Homeschool Mom, Mrs. Disorganized Homeschool Mom, and Mrs. Organized Homeschool Mom. At the end of the pagent we decided that the true winners are not the moms as much as our kids!!

Weren't the place settings lovely?? My dear friend and accountability partner Michele made the cookies and pumpkin dip which were on each table!

And this is Michele and Laura.

On the right is another dear friend Patty. I'm going to have to find out the other sweet ladie's name. Her daughter is in Keepers with Maiden and I still don't know her name! For shame, Dee!!

This is Susan, Sunshine and Tina.

Pregnancy Center Gala time again!

Mon, 9 Nov 2009 16:05:00 -0600

www.homeschoolblogger.com/earthenvessel/

This past Saturday was the annual Pregnancy Center Gala and Auction. As usual, my hubby was there that morning to set up the computers and make sure all was running smoothly in that realm.This is the same time that many hard working volunteers and Pregnancy Center staff are busy decorating the room for the evening.

Around 4 pm our sweet sister team of sitters arrived. We showed up at the St. Petersburg Coliseum a little before 5 pm and had a little time to look at the all the wonderful silent auction items before it was time for us to work. (We call it work, but it really is a joy!) Hubby was going to bid on a fishing pole but when the bidding went over $100 he decided that was too much for us.

My job every year is to connect with the lady who works out all the problems with registration. She keeps a list of changes to names and bidder #s which I take to make changes in the computer. That way when all the bidding is over, the item that were won go to the correct people!

I am also part of the data entry team. Once again, after all the bidding is over, there are volunteers assigned to go gather up the bidder sheets and they are brought to the computer room. That's when the computer room really comes to life! Usually about 3 of us meticulously enter each Item # and the winning bid and price. I'm not sure how many Items there are in each auction but I would feel safe in guessing maybe around 200 items. As we are entering the items and winning bids, hubby is gathering the already entered sheets and sorting them by item #. When we finish entering we take over fine sorting what hubby started while he starts running reports for the cashiers and invoices for the folks who won their bids. It is a fine tuned machine as we all work together!

As we are doing all this we get to visit with wonderful friends, who unfortunately, we seem to only get to see at this one event each year. I should have brought my camera but didn't this year.

Sun, 1 Nov 2009 20:54:00 -0600

www.homeschoolblogger.com/earthenvessel/

I've been working thru an issue here that involved a game that my hubby wanted us to play together. He likes to have me enjoy his computer games with him so that we have something to talk about instead of children. You may have heard of the game, World of Warcraft. I started playing it because he wanted me to and quickly found myself being sucked in. So there were actually two issues going on here. First, it was robbing me of time and causing me to be lazy. Second, there are some really questionable things in this game. We were trying to avoid all the magic and spell casting but you can't totally avoid all that.

So the Lord had been "talking" to me about this for about a week or so. I kept trying to ignore His voice and justifying my actions. I told myself, "But my husband wants me to play it. I'm being submissive." Besides, this game was really fun! But like my pastor said last Sunday, "Who says that sin isn't fun??" The breaking point came the other day. I was listening to one of my pastor's wife's messages on Isaiah. She was talking about how the Israelites were consutling mediums, etc. Then she went to a verse in Deut. where it says that all that stuff is an abomination to God. The kicker for me was that it specified even spell casters. I thought to myself, "I know we are not really casting spells, etc. But I don't want to even be PLAYING with something that is so offensive to God!"

So I let my hubby know that I didn't want to play it anymore and explained why. To my shock he told me that God had been talking to him about it too. I took that as a total confirmation that I was to quit. My hubby has had a harder time pulling away from it. The subscription we got runs out in the middle of November, so he decided that he would continue to play till it ran out and then not renew it. I believe that God has still been working on him though because he said this evening, "I gotta stop playing that game!"

Wow!!! God is sooo good!! Even as I was writing this out, my hubby (who is sitting at the other computer) asked me if his Face Book status came through. He said he wrote a sort of confession about playing the game on there!! And he has quit it and even deleted the game! I know it was hard for you to quit, sweetie!! But I know you will be blessed for it!

I have been feeling like God is smiling down on me since I made the decision to break away from that game. And last night I felt like I got an extra special blessing in that I found a website where I can download Christian Audio books. www.christianaudio.com. They have one free download a month. My goal has been to feast at the Lord's Table as much as I can each day. That means being in the Word, being in fellowship with other believers, worshiping, listening to good sound preaching, etc. I felt like this was God's way of saying, "Since you chose me over that game, I'm giving you this to fill your spiritual cup. Drink deep of Me!" I went to bed last night with overflowing praises in my heart for my Lord!

This afternoon, I got even more blessing! One of the free downloads that I got, thinking that it was a recording of "Desiring God" by John Piper turned out to be something different. It was actually a recording of John Piper speaking to a group of pastors about the life of David Brainerd. If you are unfamiliar with who David Brainerd is, (as was I) he is none other than the father of the modern missionairy movement! Wow!! Listening to that just blessed my socks off! Mr. Brainerd was an amazing man!

Btw, I was able to get my recording of "Desireing God" which is the free audio for this month. Oh, AND I'm getting to listen to a recording of a book by C.S. Lewis which I have overdue from the library! It is the second in his space trilogy, "Perelandra". The really neat thing is that I get to fill my cup while doing other things, like chores around the house, or crochet if those are all done.

Crazy Week and Weekend!

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:05:00 -0500

www.homeschoolblogger.com/earthenvessel/

This past Saturday Knight #1 got to go for his very first fishing tourney! He was sooo excited that he hardly slept a wink the night before. Then he was up super early and daddy took him to the church to head out. The competetion was between the middle school youth group and the high school group.

I was attending a CPR class at the church all afternoon. Oh, what fun that was! My arms and legs were sooo tired after leaning over the practice dummy and pushing on it's chest for so long. I think I saved that dummy's life many times over! LOL

I had time to run home for a bit before I had to go back out to get Knight #1. Sure wish I'd thought to bring my camera!! Knight #1 was soooo exhausted by that time that he could hardly see straight! He had caught a 4 oz Snapper. He had also caught numerous other fish which he didn't keep. Not sure why he didn't keep them.

They cleaned his snapper for us and gave us an extra one. I rolled them in corn meal and fried them up. Knight #1 was too tired to stay up for dinner and went to bed shortly after coming home. He got back up awile later and was then able to eat his fish and the rest of his dinner.

Then Monday night was Keepers at Home for Maiden. That is a group for young ladies to learn to be Godly wives and mothers. They memorize scripture and learn how to do many domestic type things. Maiden is LOVING being a part of this group. I usually bring her and stay to be with her. It is meant to also be a bonding thing for mothers and daughters. However, I wasn't feeling so well Monday night so daddy dropped her off and then picked her up a bit later.

Maiden was soooo excited when she came home! Each of the girls in her class (they have the girls separated according to age groups) had received a little sewing kit and they are learning to make 9 patch quilts! The really cool thing about this is that we have been reading "Little House on the Prairie" for school and it keeps mentioning Laura and Mary working on their 9 patch quilts! I'm really excited for Maiden because this is something I wanted her to learn, but I've never gotten around to teaching it to her. Well, I wouldv'e had to learn it myself first!

Last night I had to go to a Board meeting. I love these meetings! My fellow board members are such awesome people! Knight #1 was at youth group. Daddy dropped me off at my meeting first and then Knight #1 at his thing. Then he and the other to went back home for a while, during which time our neighbor stopped by and dropped off a flyer inviting us to a fall festival at her church. She told them that they are doing costumes.

Now our kids have never done costumes for halloween. Ever. So this will be a totally new experience for us! Knight #2 wants to be a robot, Maiden wants to be a princess and Knight #1 hasn't decided what he wants to be yet. I just told them that they may have to just choose from what is available. I will have to get pictures to post on here!

Wonderful thoughts on being broken before God

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 09:59:00 -0500

www.homeschoolblogger.com/earthenvessel/

These were all in my lesson today from "The Lord's Table"

Matthew Henry writes about the Passover Lamb:

It was to be eaten with bitter herbs in remembrance of the bitterness of their bondage in Egypt. We must feed upon Christ with sorrow and brokenness of heart, in remembrance of sin; this will give an admirable relish to the lamb. Christ will be sweet to us if sin be bitter.

Spurgeon wrote:

Go as you are to Christ, and ask him to give that tenderness of heart which shall be to you the indication that pardon has come; for pardon cannot and will not come unattended by a melting of soul and a hatred of sin. Wrestle with the Lord! Say, I will not let you go except you bless me. Get a fast hold upon the savior by a vigorous faith in his great atonement. Oh! May his spirit enable you to do this! Say in your soul, here I will abide, at the horns of the altar; if I perish I will perish at the foot of the cross. From my hope in Jesus I will not depart; but I will look up and still say, savior, your heart was broken for me, break my heart! You were wounded; wound me! Your blood was freely poured forth, for me; Lord, let me pour forth my tears that I should have nailed you to the tree. Oh Lord, dissolve my soul; melt it in tenderness, and you will be forever praised for making your enemy your friend. May God bless you, and make you repent, if you have not repented; and if you have, may he enable you to continue in it all your days, for Jesus Christ sake. Amen.

For this is what the high and lofty One says he who lives forever, whose name is holy: I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite. — Isaiah 57:15