Ramblings - Homeschool Blogger

Interesting

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 12:56:00 -0500

I find it very interesting that one of the two most frequent searches that people do and land on my blog, if only for a short time, is for some form of "love the Lord with all your heart, soul, and mind." (The other is noni or the Beckers.) It makes me wonder if there are a lot of people trying to find that verse or really wonder what it means. Are there a lot of Christians out there wondering about this verse? How do we measure up?

Gratitude List continued

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 17:04:00 -0500

It has been a long time since I added to this list online, but have done so mentally going through my day.

♥   Fans in the window on a summer night.
♥   Pizza night with the family.
♥   Playing games with my children. (Phase 10, Upwords, Skip Bo, and Piffle [a 10,000 game using dice])
♥   Hearing my son playing worship music, by his choice.
♥   Being able to search the internet to find out what to do for my daughter after being stung by a scorpion.
♥   Favor with an acquaintance who helped us with our broken air conditioner and who God gave wisdom in how to fix it.
♥    Learning that I have been eating when I wasn't really hungry; learning to recognize both hunger and full and being able to lose weight eating all the wonderful foods that I love, by making myself behave and not the food.
♥   Watching my children learn this {true hunger and full cues} too.
♥   Sharing the funny parts of a book with my daughter.
♥   Talking with the children about Bible passages that I'm contemplating, and they share their opinions with me.

God is sooo good! We can look at how horrible something is and stay focused on that or we can find something to be grateful about in the midst of the situation. As the scripture says, "IN everything give Him thanks" (I Thes. 5:18). There is an old song that says, in the good times praise His name, even in the bad times do the same, in everything, give the King of kings, all the thanks. I hope that I am living my life in such a way that is bring thanks and praise to God.

Have a blessed day,
Michele

Stirred

Sat, 4 Jul 2009 16:47:00 -0500

    I've just been spending some time on  AHolyExperience and I must say that I am stirred. I went through a season where I read her blog daily. She inspired me to blog more. The music on her site also stirred me. I requested some of the musician's music for Christmas and love the cd's. I have not read her blog for a few months now, you know, life . . . things got busy. So I just spent a few minutes reading her last several entries and can feel a stirring inside.
    She does write in my style, but her words move me. The atmosphere that she creates on her site, stirs me. She gets me to think about things in a different way. I'm not poetic, so I sometimes must work at understanding but it is always worth it. I leave her site with a challenge to see something differently, feel something differently, write differently, and express myself differently.

    The other day, I opened "The Message" and knew God was going to meet me in those pages. He did . . . He warned me to watch my mouth (see Eph 5), to bridle my tongue and speak in love. As is generally the case, I had opportunities to practice these instructions during the enxt several days . . . sometimes I did well, and other times I fell into old patterns, but at least I recognized it quicker those times. It is a good thing that God doesn't show us all of our faults at once; I know I couldn't take it. But as He enlightens me, little by little, I'm able to make changes, little by little, and grow and mature and then be ready, once again, for Him to show me the next areas to conquer.

    Family has arrived, just as I finished the last paragraph, so I must be finished with what He wanted me to share today. On to a birthday celebration, my firstborn turned 18 yesterday, and FIREWORKS!!! What fun! Have a blessed weekend!

Michele ºÜº

Paper Toys

Fri, 5 Jun 2009 08:12:00 -0500

Today in the Homeschool Freebie Friday email from The Old Schoolhouse Magazine, Jamin shared a lot of paper toys links. I noticed that she suggested one that I'd just found a couple of weeks ago for my dd to use with kids she babysits. When she babysits, she takes a book and some kind of toy or craft and some page to color too. Sometimes she even takes some video that goes with it in some way. This helps her have something to do with the kids to keep all of them from getting bored.

She took the book "Puppy On the Farm" and used the Farm Play Set, this is one that Jamin' also found/suggested. There was no puppy in the set so she took one of her little puppies that she got with some Barbie.

Here is a paper "toy" website that I have found in the past. It is by the Canon website and has some really great paper "toys" for the older kids. They have pop-up ABC's that I think I will make for my nieces. I would call a lot of them paper models. They have a lot of animals; dinosaurs and insects are in the science section. I wish they had more US buildings but at least they are not ALL from Japan, they have some from England, France, Spain, Egypt and even India. These could be great when studying other countries, especially with older kids, unless YOU make them for the younger ones to see. They even have a scrapbook section. Go look around; I think you'll find something you like.

Have a great day,
Michele ºÜº

Meals

Wed, 20 May 2009 13:48:00 -0500

    I have decided that I absolutely *love* oven and crock pot meals!!!! I can get the majority of a meal in the oven or crock pot in 15 minutes or less. It reminds me of something I read in a Living On A Dime newsletter one time. She said something like, our ancestors would have been frustrated with having to spend 30 minutes to make dinner. Here's an article she wrote about it, from her website.

    I've been using some recipes from some wonderful e-books that I have gotten from Sheri Graham and Crystal Paine of biblicalwomanhood.com. I have one of Sheri's in the oven right now...smells so good...Beef and Rice Casserole, for which I used ground turkey instead of ground beef and a couple of chicken bouillon cubes and onion powder instead of onion soup mix, because of my husband's allergy to beef.

    Another of Sheri's recipes that I adapted was "Baked Potato Bar". I love this idea. What I did was clean a bunch of potatoes and put them in the crock pot on low for about 4-5 hours. When we were ready to eat, I browned some ground turkey, heated some canned corn, sautéed onions and mushrooms, shredded some mozzarella cheese, and opened a jar of salsa. Set it all on the table and we had a yummy dinner. The leftover potatoes can either be used for hashbrowns the next morning or in another meal (Potato and Kielbasa Skillet, which I got from one of Marilyn Moll's ebooks but am having trouble with her site loading information, so I cannot put it here).

    We also had this pasta dish this week and everyone loved it. I'll be on the lookout for more convenient oven and crock pot recipes. Please share your's with me, either recipes or favorite websites.

    Have a great week!
    Michele

Many Happenings

Sat, 9 May 2009 12:26:00 -0500

    Wow, time is really flying! My oldest graduates soon. This year is officially over on Friday the 15th, of course, we continue to learn during the summer as well, but in a more "delight directed" way.
    I'm planning next year and very excited, once again. We will be using SOW (Student of the Word) again. When the Lord directed me to not use it this year, I was sad in a way and thought we might not be using it any more, ever again, but thankfully, the Lord has directed us there again this year. I'm looking forward to getting deep into the Word with my almost 12yodd. She has done SOW since she was young, but always in a "tag along" type way, as I was teaching more to my boys that are older (by 4 and 6 years), but she learned a lot.
    Much has happened since my last posting. My 95 year old Granny in Virginia passed on to be with the Lord. A shock broke on the van and I mean the bolt that holds it in place sheared off! What an interesting 2 weeks it has been. We decided NOT to do a big ceremony for my graduating son, with his consent, and bless him with a couple pricier items that he's been wanting for some time. This was a big relief as the ceremony was set for the 16th of May, right smack dab in the middle of our celebration season (birthdays, special days, and anniversaries) which lasts through Independence Day. So as I said, it has been a very busy couple weeks since my last post.
    I'll be posting some of my plans for the new year, concerning our studies. I love that SOW is so flexible and allows you to use whatever resources you desire.
    I hope to do some postings about our SOWing this year, as a help to those that are either new to SOW or trying to decide if it is something for them. I hope to post at least once a week.
    Have a great day,
Michele ºÜº

Love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength....

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 15:20:00 -0500

I was working on my WDW (weigh down workshop) workbook yesterday, studying the notes listed from the video and looking up the scriptures listed. I came to Mark 12:29-31 when the Holy Spirit began to teach me.

²⁹And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:
³⁰And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.

³¹And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.

I have been a Christian for 37 years and as you can imagine, I am very familiar with this scripture. I even made a song out of verse 30 for my children when they were little. But yesterday the Lord brought somethings to my attention in order to make some "course corrections" in my life and I wanted to share them with you.

The first thing that He brought to my attention was that this is a commandment and not just any commandment but the FIRST commandment. AND this is from Jesus Himself! So I began to wonder, what would this look like in my life. What would it look like to love the Lord with ALL my heart, ALL my mind, ALL my soul, and ALL my strength? I pondered this for a few moments and then decided to move on to the next verses in the list. The list actually had Romans 8:2, 5-8 but Romans 8:5 hit me.

⁵For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.

It was at this point that I decided to stop and think about my day. I began to specifically think about the evening hours, from dinner until bed. I asked myself how I spend those hours. I realized that my evening hours are spent with my family and entertainment. We are talking about 5 hours every evening. Does that show Mark 12:30? I had to admit that it did not, much to my shame. I was focusing my evening hours on the flesh and not the Spirit. Then Romans 8:8 says that those that are in the flesh cannot please God. Oh! I really want to please God! Needless to say, I have decided to make some changes.

So, with all that in mind, I challenge you to inspect your day. Does it show that you love the Lord with ALL your heart, soul, mind, and strength? Would others see your life and know that you love God by the things you do and the way you spend your time?

Blessings,
Michele ºÜº

Noni Pills

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 13:27:00 -0500

I mentioned Noni Juice here before. Well, I have since found that my local Wal-Mart carries Noni pills. They don't work as quickly as the juice works BUT they don't taste like the juice does either. And that's a great thing!

Two of the softgel pills are equivalent to an ounce of juice. When I have really bad menstrual cramps, I will take 4 at one time, which equals 2 ounces of Noni juice. I also like that these Spring Valley Noni Softgels are organic. Because they are softgels, there are more ingredients than JUST the Noni, but it works for me and I don't put off taking it because of any nasty taste.

Blessings,
Michele ºÜº

Flying Time

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 10:32:00 -0500

    My how the time flies! I have tried, for the last several months, to limit my online time. I guess I'm being successful because I have not posted here lately. I also have not even read most of the blogs that I was frequenting before.

     We had another "conference" at our church last week. We were there from about 8:15 in the morning until after 6:00 each night. Thankfully, we ate all of our meals there (except dh, for whom I made his breakfast and packed his lunch each day). I am on my feet so much during the "conference" weeks, that when I come home I cannot even check my email because I need to sit in my recliner with my feet raised, to keep them from swelling.

    This was our 7th "conference" to help out at. In the past I have gained as much as 10 pounds during a 2-week "conference". This time I was determined to keep my weight in check. So, I decided to have only one serving and only one dessert at lunch and dinner. I know that sounds like a lot but believe me, there are scrumptious cookies available to eat all day long, so counting one of those as a dessert really helped me keep myself in check. I managed to only gain 1 pound!!! Whoo hooo!!!! I did have seconds on lasagna night and roast chicken and dressing night but overall, I did well considering there were 3 full meals a day.

    We are now looking ahead to the middle of May. My oldest will graduate then and we are planning a personal graduation ceremony/celebration. He said he did not want to part of a "homeschool" graduation with people he didn't know, so we are planning our own. At first I thought it would be very small because we go to a very small church. But in making the guest list, we realized how many people have touched Brian's life. There will be quite a few people invited that we see at the "conferences" several times a year. These people have become very dear to us and definitely a part of Brian's life. We also have a few families that are a part of our homeschool support group that we want to invite as well. A couple of them have large families, which can boost the guest count, if they honor us with attending.

    I know this is shorter than my usual posts, but I need to run for now. God bless you!

Michele ºÜº

Dietary Update

Sun, 22 Feb 2009 10:16:00 -0600

    I cannot believe that it has been almost two months since I have blogged at all. I guess I'll start by giving an update on the dietary changes I talked about last time. In a nutshell, not good. I have not actually counted those calories completely on any day yet. I did do the morning ones for a while but by the time I got to dinner, stopped. I really do think this is a key to losing my weight, at least for a bit.

    I tend to do pretty good for breakfast and lunch but come dinner, I end up getting a second serving. I think I need to include more veggies with dinner since veggies are low in calories and the main dish or casserole is usually pretty hefty in calories. For example, we like to have Spaghetti Bake (I'll include the recipe at the end of the post) but since it makes a full 13x9 pan I don't really fix any side dishes to go with it -- bad, I know. I don't really like salads and that seems the best side dish suited to a spaghetti dish, to me. SO, I end up eating another scoop of spaghetti bake since I am feeling like I still want more food, but I probably am not really HUNGRY but just enjoying the taste of the food so much that I WANT more. So, I really NEED to count calories . . . UGH!!!

    I'm really enjoying the Devotions for Dieters that I mentioned last time too. She shared one thing that has really hit home with me and helped me for several days, since reading it.
             Add some Umph to your Try and you get Triumph!

    Another thing she shared was about what we drink with our meals. The information she included that day said that putting cold drinks in our stomach after eating or during eating can lower the temperature of our stomach contents causing the fats to become more solid and slowing down the digestion as well as causing some of the fat to be stored rather than sent through the system. (At least that is how I remember it.) It was suggested that drinking coffee or hot tea with and after a meal would do more to aid in digestion. I haven't done any research on it myself but I have started to drink some hot tea with and after my meals rather than water. But now I am noticing that I'm not getting in nearly as much water as I should be. Ugh! The tea can count for some of my water intake but because it is a diuretic, I really need to be sure to get more water in.

    I'm going to have to print out a calendar that I use for exercise accountability. Since I'm not using JUST the Wii Fit, it isn't keeping track of all my exercise because I forget to enter in my Other Activity Credits on the day I do it and I haven't found a way to enter it for previous days without manipulating the Wii's date. It would just be way easier to have a physical calendar to put an X on for exercising. I don't want to use our general family calendar because it is a write-on/wipe-off AND it is on the refrigerator because it is magnetic. I have found that I am motivated by having that visual.

    I guess I'll go for now. I have lots of little things I wanted to talk about but I think I'll try to do one post for each one throughout the week instead of putting them all in one big post.

Spaghetti Bake
1 pkg spaghetti, cooked as directed al dente
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
pizza toppings or 1 pound browned ground turkey (or beef)
24 oz. jar spaghetti sauce
8 oz mozzarella cheese (We prefer colby/jack cheese.)

Drain spaghetti and put in a large bowl. Mix in egg and parmesan cheese. Place in a 13x9 dish, which I usually spray with oil spray. Spread on the sauce (I just buy a cheap spaghetti sauce from the store to make this a quick and easy dinner to make.) I then put my ground meat, seasoned with garlic powder and onion powder. Finally sprinkle the grated cheese on top. Bake in a 350º oven for 20-30 minutes. If you just drained your spaghetti and browned your meat, it will only take a few minutes to melt the cheese because it is already heated through.

Sometimes I will brown my meat and freeze it to make a quicker meal later. The other day I boiled my noodles at lunch time and had pre-browned my meat. I made up the whole thing and had it just waiting for my son to put in the oven when it was time. It did take about 30 minutes to heat through and melt the cheese since everything was cold.

Have a great day!
Michele ºÜº