Paid in Full

What's taking so long??

2011-09-07T14:31:00.002-04:00

I know it's been far too long since I updated my blog...I have been horribly neglectful! The reality of my life is that I do not treat it as though it were my own...sooo I am often running VERY short of time. The last couple of years have had us coming and going so fast that it really seems as though we pass by ourselves both ways. We have had to make even more trips back home for funerals of dear loved ones, and to be a help to other loved ones.

In between the trips for sad occasions we have managed to sneak in some joyful times. I was able to take my children to some of the wonderful outdoors activities that I enjoyed so much as a younger me. I took pictures of my boys jumping off the bluffs into the deep water of the strip mines, we camped on the river I used to visit every single day, we visited places that I used to call home, and visited my Daddy's grave. We saw cousins, friends, grandbabies, and the house that we lived in when Troy got saved and the Lord turned our lives completely around. It was cathartic in a strange sort of way to just go and see that those things and places are still there, and I always cry when I have to leave. Seeing those people, places, and things in my rear view mirror has always felt like I was abandoning a large part of myself, my heritage, my family...and it's always hard.

Since my last post was almost a year ago there has again been so much going on in life that I know I can never get it all down here...so you'll have to settle for the reader's digest version. We made 2 trips back home earlier this summer...both to attend funerals of people we loved. I've lost 4 family members so far this year to cancer...3 of them to pancreatic cancer. I've been so out of touch with much of my family for many years and so it shocks me to hear that suddenly they are gone on. So traveling back to say goodbye is hard...and harder than that, but so worth doing.

I'm so keenly aware that my own children aren't really children anymore at all...and the time when they leave the nest to make one of their own is getting closer all the time. I know in my head that they will still be my babies, still love me, still want me to be a part of their lives...but a different part. I'm not sure I'm ready to let them go...in fact I want to drag them backward on the timeline of life and have some more time to just be with them! I have been so blessed with my kids...we have great relationships and they are awesome people that I am terribly proud of. Everytime I go to the Lord in prayer for them my eyes fill with tears of selfish sorrow for all of the days that I won't be right there with them to see the fruit they bear in their own lives...I will instead hear of it by phone or email, or text message. I'm proud of them all, but it sure is bittersweet!

This summer has been an exceptionally grueling one for Taeler and I. We have both been horribly ill since the beginning of July. The doctors so far only say "It has to be Lyme Disease...nothing else makes sense". We are attacking it with every available tool...but progress is slow and at times terribly discouraging. I just hope and pray that Tae doesn't end up with any long term health issues because of this. Until last night we had both been too ill to even want to do much...but the Lord gave each of us a sweet blessing last night and we were up cooking, cleaning, and singing praises to HIM until bed time. Today we are still feeling better, but not as good as last night. It's so hard for me to not pout and have a bad attitude about it, but this still is the day that the Lord has made and I will rejoice in it and be glad.

There are so many things that have been up in the air so to speak for the last year or two and we still have no solid direction or wisdom about those things. We are just resigned to wait on the Lord and be ready for whatever He calls us to. And that's about it for now....

What a roller coaster!

2010-11-03T12:09:00.002-04:00

Please forgive the multiple, extended blog absences this year! We have been neck deep in busyness all year long, some of it was terribly painful for our family and some filled with joy. So much has happened that I couldn't begin to tell it all here right now so we will just have to take it "by little and little" until it's all set right here again.

We are all healthy other than the regular "bugs" that go around this time of year. Me and Fred are getting well after having a bout of strep throat, Troy and the boys have all battled colds but all are on the mend. I still can't get over how much these kids have grown up. They still amaze me everyday.

There will be more posts coming soon I promise. I've been busy getting some writing things lined up for me and Fred (who is now an author in her own and is doing quite well!) and she and I have some other work going on right now too... I'll fill y'all in later.

Putting things in order

2010-06-16T15:56:00.002-04:00

At least that's been my goal since I came home. We have too.much.stuff! It doesn't really help at all that my sweet Hunk O Honey is a total packrat either. He means well, really he does....this is what I tell myself every time I have to step over a pile of somethingorother that he brought home with high hopes of eventually filling a need and saving a pile of money. It's not totally his fault though....my kids have tons of stuff too. And it's all taking over the house.

So, I've been on a mission lately. It actually started not long before we left to go back home. Everyday I go through more stuff, somedays it's lots of stuff and somedays not a lot, but it's something every day. We have a room cleaned out in the barn and all of the stuff that I deem unnecessary gets to go live in the barn until the day that we either have a huge yard sale or I get tired of it being in the barn and haul it all off to the thrift store. So far Fred's room is completely finished, my storage room is done, the living room is in progress but is nearly finished and I've worked on mine and Hunk's room quite a bit. It's amazing what will accumulate if you let it!

As I worked through a few piles late last night waiting for Hunk to get in from work I thought of how much stuff we accumulate inside of ourselves. The situation with my brothers during the last few days of my mother's passing was not good and I realized that I have accumulated a bunch of stuff during that time. As I sat down on the floor in my room last night I realized that all through life we often gather "stuff" within ourselves. The easy route is to stuff it down deep inside and ignore it, or to pretend it isn't there and put on that fake smile and just keep trudging onward. But just like those piles of stuff that have gathered in my home, the day will come that the stuff takes over and you find yourself buried in a mess that will take some time and serious work to get rid of.

I'm thankful to have the help of the Lord when it comes to sorting "stuff"!! Just a little talk with Jesus......

Fred's Where I'm From Poem

2010-06-05T14:28:00.002-04:00

Where I'm From

I am from warm fireplaces,
where love and grief are shared;
from the clothesline out back and the bookshelf in the corner.
I am from mobile homes, old homes, brick and stone houses
with the laughter of children and
the fragrance of the season in the air.
I am from the sweet gum tree
with the rope swing on one side and tire swing on the other.
I am from the rose bush,
whose fragrant blossoms I remember
though gone, long ago.

I am from the Easter get together and hand made quilt,
From Great Grandma's calloused hands and
Grandpa's tomato patch.
I'm from stubborn folks and
hard working family,
And from a smile on a rainy day.

I am from shake it off and try again,
from do unto others as you'd have 'em do for you;
and be serious with God and He'll be serious with you.
I am from the birthday stomp dance.
I'm from the hills of Missouri and
the songs of the Cherokee Indians,
Pork chops with mashed taters and pumpkin pie.
From my mother's broken home and ruined life
that our merciful Saviour rescued her from.
From photo albums and keepsake boxes
stored in bookshelves and bedroom closets.

I am a hodge podge of many things,
rooted in happiness and heartaches.
Family that makes you stronger,
and a GOD too great for words,
Who has given me these roots I cherish.

And so it goes on

2010-06-03T15:03:00.002-04:00

Another extremely long blog absence, another time of trial for our family, losses mourned, griefs shared, burdens given to the Lord, and victories received... and another time to reflect on God's goodness and mercy toward us.

I knew the day would come that the phone would ring and it would be the call I didn't want.... the one that would tell me that the time I've dreaded for months had come, and I knew it would catch me unprepared to do what needed to be done. The last part of March one day we were running around the house as we usually do, just sharing our morning together when the phone rang. My younger (but not youngest) brother was on the line and as soon as I heard the words "I need you to listen to me..." I knew what was going on. My brother was calling to let me know that Mom had been admitted to the hospital and that the doctors were NOT optimistic that she would survive even the rest of that day. Needless to say our family made the fastest trip back home that anyone could ever make.

Less than 20 hours after I hung up the phone with my brother I was standing beside Momma's bed telling her how much I love her and how glad I was that we made it to see her. Quietly Momma asked me to please promise to stay with her until her time here was finished, and to help her get some things done that she had been trying to get wrapped up for some time. Of course I told her I was there for as long as she needed me to be, to do whatever she needed me to do. I was there for a little over 5 weeks, doing everything she asked me to do .... exactly as she wanted it to be done.

Momma went home to Jesus on April 23rd. I miss her terribly but I am so thankful that her suffering is over. I saw her family all pull together around her in an amazing display of unity and strength. I saw that the same people I had known all of my life were still only just very. real. people. I learned that sometimes during hard times the people that you think you can trust the most are the people you should be the most wary of. I saw my children live the way their Daddy and I have been teaching and training them to, and boldly, even before disapproving eyes, even when it was the hardest way to do things, even when they had to stand alone to do it, with kindness and gentleness, and in great displays of love for the Saviour. I saw the hand of God over my life in so many miraculous ways through every single day, guiding us, protecting us, providing for us, blessing us, and loving us, richly and unwavering.... how do you put any of those things into words?

We've been home now since the early part of May, but it has taken so long for me to feel like I have my feet firmly back under me again. There are still hard and ugly things that go on all around me, but every day I see the Lord's tender hands of mercy working in my life and I can't help but just be thankful that I have HIM to look to, to trust, to learn from.... and I wonder all over again, how did I EVER live without HIM?

An ounce of prevention, what we drink

2010-02-15T14:44:00.003-05:00

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure the old saying goes. Too bad that most of us just don't take that wise advice to heart. Fred has been studying herbal and alternative medicine since she was just getting ready to start high school and it's been interesting to see all that she has learned being put into practice as she grows into a woman who will all too soon be a wife and mother herself. She has been talking on her blog about the different vitamins that our body needs and what they do in/for the body.

There are a lot of myths about our diets, the vitamins and minerals that we need, how to get them and how much is enough. Sure enough the easiest way to get a good dose of prevention for all illnesses is through our diets. It's heartbreaking to see so many people squander their health for the sake of convenience! Cold cereals may have X number of "essential vitamins and minerals", but don't believe for a minute that your body is going to be able to absorb all that the food box says it may contain. Vitamin pills may not necessarily be the answer either since they are often hard on the stomach and difficult for the body to absorb and utilize the nutrients they claim to contain.

Troy and I learned the hard way when we were just starting our family that prepackaged, easily prepared foods are lethal. We both grew up with mothers that worked full time and were single women leading busy lives. Spending all of their time planning and preparing meals was just not a high priority. To them food that was quick, easy to prepare, and as inexpensive as possible was the mission. The tv commercials and packaging on the products they bought at the store all told wonderful stories of how "good for you" the cereals and soups and frozen dinners they bought were. But somehow the generation of people that Troy and I grew up in is full of extremely unhealthy people, with unhealthy eating habits, and less knowledge about what the body requires for health than any generation before us.

We both have struggled horribly with our health, even when we were in our early 20s we both had multiple issues with our digestion and had already been treated for stomach ulcers. Troy still has issues with digestion and has to be careful about what he eats all the time. I struggle with a neurological condition that no one seems to be able to explain how I became afflicted with...but I can't help but wonder how the foods I've eaten may have impacted my body.

We really worked hard when our children were young to give them the freshest possible foods, straight from the farm when possible, in their natural and whole form. We have seen the results of that kind of diet in all of our kids, and now have seen what happens when you get away from that kind of diet for a length of time. Our kids were EXTREMELY healthy children, rarely even catching a cold or viral infection, and NEVER needed antibiotics until within the last couple of years. They are all still very healthy but we have noticed that since we moved away from the places where we had easier (and less expensive)access to farm fresh foods their health has declined just a bit. Where they once never got sick, they now catch the occasional cold or virus, they lack the muscle tone and natural luster to their hair and skin that they once had, their energy levels have dropped dramatically, and they have more difficulty paying attention than they used to.

Knowing what I do know about the food additives, sweeteners, processing practices, and manufacturing of the foods available and how they impact our health I can't just turn a blind eye to the decline in my family's health. My husband and children are relying on me to protect their health through our diets as much as I am able....I have fallen down on the job and am now more determined than ever to correct my mistakes. My husband and I have spent the last 5 years gaining an unhealthy amount of weight and watching our energy levels and ability to focus plummet. We have watched our once robust children become less healthy, less active, and less interested in learning during the same 5 years. Minor changes will not do, we must radically fix what is broken in our food to fix what is broken in our bodies.

A lot of changes have already been made in our home concerning our food, but many many more are in the process of being implemented. Right now one of our biggest areas of concentration is on the amount of sugar we are taking in. It's unbelievable how sugar is hidden in our food, but even more so in our drinks! So for today's post in my sorta kind of series on healthful eating I thought I would put up a bit of information for all of us to put to use.

Here's a great article from the CDC on rethinking your drink! It's amazing to me to realize that a lot of people are drinking as many calories in a day as they are recommended to consume in their total diet! Constantly drinking soda, sweetened tea or other soft drinks like Kool-aid and such, or coffees, or sweetened juices has a terrible effect on our health. Not only is it flooding our bodies with calories in excess of what we need, but it adds fluids to our bodies that require intricate process to clean and puts a strain on our digestive systems, kidneys, and causes us to abstain from drinking enough water to help our bodies process the waste as they should.

Some people would think that it's okay to simply substitute artificial sweeteners, but I'm totally against that. I think if anyone would do enough research about the effects of those chemical ingredients they would quickly see that it is not beneficial to your health to consume those kinds of things, especially not on a regular basis. Those chemicals are toxic in large quantity, so to me that says they can't be good even in small quantities. We should create the habit of not taking in things that are bad for us in any amount. If it isn't beneficial to your health why use it? Why replace the healthy option with something that isn't useful to your body?

I've posted here about food additives before, but it's still great information and worth a second (or third) look. I've also posted about the water cure here before, but again, it's great information.

A great way to start a clean up of your body after a period of time on a bad diet is a fast. A total fast while drinking only water is good, but really hard on people with health issues like hypoglycemia, or extra electrolyte requirements. Sometimes a juice fast is a better option. For some people with certain digestive issues a juice fast is more harmful than helpful, for them you can modify the juice fast into a smoothie fast by making green smoothies instead. That way they get enough fiber and "flora" via the yogurt or kefir to keep their gut healthy. Here's another great article about fasting for health just in case you need more reading.

Making healthful food choices for yourself and your family is a challenge. It's going to take dedication, research, and effort to convince them (and yourself)that not only is it worth it but that it is going to taste better, and make them feel better. Training my children to be good stewards of their money and time was something I was convicted about when they were very young. Now more than ever I'm convicted that I must also train them to be good stewards of their bodies as well.

What's going on?

2010-02-02T15:15:00.002-05:00

Too much, as usual. The weather is dreary and cold to boot, which always makes me feel so much less motivated to get everything taken care of....I would much rather be curled up somewhere warm with a good book and hot cup of tea. I'm having sort of a "growly" feeling day... most likely the result of too much stress, bad weather, not enough sleep, and did I say too much stress?

A few weeks ago we found out that my mother has cancer. On a nearly daily basis we've gotten more and more information about her condition as new tests were done and results would come in. She is now in the hospital to undergo even more tests, begin chemo, and hopefully find some way to help the kidney that has failed and the other that is beginning to. I hate it that she is going through this...and that I am so.far.away. Top it off with the fact that neither one of my brothers will speak to me (for reasons unknown to me)so I get to sit here.so.far.away. and wonder what is going on and how Mom is doing with all the ~~tortures~~ treatments and tests until she feels well enough to call me or ask one of her siblings to.

I wish I could be there for her. I wish I could help. I wish she wasn't so alone. I wish I could make cancer go away. I wish I could fix things so that she wasn't suffering in some cold, impersonal, hospital that is so.far.away. I wish I could be 10 years old again and beat some sense into my brothers (who never bothered to tell me they were mad at me or why)!

I'll be trying to take a trip back home as soon as I can make the arrangements (and find the money) but until then all I can do is pray, and pray some more, and pray again, and go back to my room to pray again just in case I forgot something important. Then come in here, blow my nose, take care of the kids, cook for Troy, pet the dogs, check the email...go back down the hall and pray.

We have had a little bit of good news too though. {snicker}Well, maybe not so little after all. Troy and I have our first GRANDSON! He was born January 20 at 6pm. The "little" feller weighed 12lbs 12 oz, and was 24 and 1/2 inches long. He has a head FULL of blonde hair so long it gets in his eyes, which are a gorgeous blue by the way. Believe it or not, he was even born a little over 4 weeks early! The doctors decided it was best to take him a little early by c-section because he was so big. Thank the Lord, he's healthy and strong and a wonderful addition to the family. Those of y'all that have seen my boys and remember when I had Josh will know that our family just tends to have BIG BOYS.

We are keeping busy around the house trying to get ready for spring. It's hard to plan things like the gardens and such right now with so much going on back home and us not knowing when we'll be taking a trip. We did get a start on the strawberry gardens though before the snow/sleet/ice came our way. Hopefully we'll get that finished and get the transplanting done and some more fence work done and at least a portion of the planting begun in time for a decent crop of everything we plant to come in when we need it. After a couple of really bad garden years we are needing to grow EVERYTHING.

Well, I'm off to try and get chores done and run to get feed for the critters. I'll try to update soon.

Never a boring moment

2010-01-20T15:09:00.003-05:00

One of these days I will learn to appreciate the times in life when I am actually a little bit bored! Life is piling more on my plate right now than I want to take the time to think about let alone begin to deal with. I have multiple family members facing very serious health crisis (es?) right now and I am very concerned for their well being. It is enough to make a person go a little bit bonkers to be so far away from the people they love and to know that those people are suffering and could use a helping hand and a caring ear....maybe even a shoulder to lean on. Those times that try me to my very core are also the ones that cause me to learn to lean more on my Saviour, so again I have to just trust HIM. Romans 8:28 gets repeated many times a day around here...among many other verses.

It's that time again that the kids and I are working ourselves half silly trying to get ready for the big spring push. The gardens, the bees, the yard, the chickens and rabbits....all require much attention this time of year in order for them to be productive through the spring, summer and fall. Our first try at year round gardening went better than I had expected but not as well as I had hoped either....LOL, like that makes any sense!

I learned a lot about 4 season gardening this past year and hope to do better next year, we did harvest fresh kale for us and the chickens and bunnies all winter and the broccoli that survived the deer are big and ready to form heads very soon so that is an excellent encouragement. All 5 bee hives survived the worst parts of winter and look to be in great shape for spring...that alone is cause for celebration! We are hoping and praying for a bountiful honey harvest this year.

Well, I do hope to put up a bit longer post soon. My time online has been short lately with all that we are trying to accomplish and the phone calls to loved ones back home taking so much of my time so I know I'm behind on all of my blog/email/online activities. I'll do my best to update soon. Right now I'm off to try and get some more work caught up and get ready for church tonight.

Cream of Chicken (or other) Soup

2010-01-07T14:26:00.001-05:00

You can make your own mix for cream of chicken or beef soup and store it in mason jars. It can be adapted fairly easily for mushroom and celery as well just sauté the amount of chopped fresh or canned mushrooms, or finely diced celery in a bit of butter in your saucepan before you make the soup from the mix. This is sure to be a money saver and is best for those people who are sensitive to the additives in pre-processed foods or who have food allergies.

How to make a Condensed Cream Soup Mix:
For each batch, you’ll need one quart jar and one pint jar to store. It’ll store on the pantry shelf up to a year.

4 cups instant non-fat dry milk

1 1/2 cups cornstarch

1/2 cup chicken or beef bouillon granules

1/3 cup dry minced onions

2 teaspoons mixed Italian herbs

1 teaspoon garlic powder

¼ teaspoon red pepper

¼ teaspoon black pepper

This equals 18 cans of condensed cream of chicken or cream of beef soup! It stores nicely in two jars!
To reconstitute (equal to one 10.5-ounce can of condensed cream soup), combine 1/3 cup mix and 1 1/4 cups water, either using a small saucepan on the stove or a microwave-safe bowl; cook and stir till mixture thickens. You should label the jars and note the directions to reconstitute the mix right on the lid or the label.

Enjoy and keep on saving!

Happy New Year

2010-01-07T13:55:00.002-05:00

I know it's not new year's eve or even new year's day, but this is my first post so far this year. We were blessed to spend new year's eve in a wonderful church service at our church listening to some of the best preaching there is. That's one of our family's favorite traditions since moving out here in 2005, the Watch Night service has become something that we look forward to even more than thanksgiving or Christmas. We certainly can't think of a better way to start the new year than with preaching, praying, and praising the Lord!

With all that we've heard in the preaching lately, read in our family Bible reading, and gotten from the Lord in our family prayer meetings we already know that our year will be a very busy one. Thankfully the Lord was gracious to show us where we needed to sharpen our focus, and where we needed to let some things go. Our God is so good to show us those things rather than to allow us to continue going the way that is unprofitable and unhealthy for us!

2009 was a very hectic and hard year for us in so many ways. Our family faced more illness than we've seen in the years since we've lived here (and we have the bills to prove it), we have dealt with serious illnesses in our extended family and twice had to go back home to take care of urgent needs for them. We fell behind on so many things, important things, like schooling our children, our business plans, and several areas of our service to the Lord. We struggled more than we thought we could bear financially but somehow everything always got taken care of. We finished the year feeling totally exhausted, worn out, disheartened and discouraged, but determined to keep our chins up and to continue on weary step after weary step in trying to set it all right again.

I hope that this year just keeps on getting better and better. I know that correcting those things that are wrong in our lives is difficult and unpleasant sometimes but I also know that the reward in having done it and followed the Lord's leading is too good for words. I'll be posting more, but for now it has to be short. I hope everyone has a wonderful year!

Fred is blogging again

2009-11-30T14:42:00.002-05:00

Among the zillion other things we have going on around here, our sweet little Fred is blogging again. She lost all of her sign in info for her old blog and didn't want to keep going with it after such an extended absence so she started a new one at Clay in the Hands of the Potter. It's good to see her online again, and now that some things around here have changed maybe we can function in such a way that she'll be able to keep up with it.

We have been busy as usual, but with more focus on things that have been let slide. Weaving together loose ends with schooling for all 3 of the kids and helping them get more focus to their days with our weird schedule has been a priority. Our family also took a couple of days to just get away before our revival meetings started and went hunting together while we were gone. It was a real blessing to spend quiet time together in the woods, but an even bigger one when my sweet Hunk O Honey got his first deer. I'll be processing meat tomorrow!

Sorry for such a short post but I really have tons to do before the meeting tonight. See ya!

Hunting Season

2009-10-29T09:55:00.002-04:00

I love deer season back home, here it's very different and maddening most of the time. In our county it is legal for people to drive up and down the roads with their trucks and set their hunting dogs loose to run the deer out of the woods so the fat, lazy, rude hunters can sit in their trucks and shoot a deer from the vehicle. 9 times out of 10 they come out of their trucks only long enough to cut the backstrap out of the deer and leave the rest of the carcass lying in a ditch or somewhere else....what a waste.

For us every year this means we have strangers sitting in front of our house or on the side road, sometimes even in our driveway, while their dogs run around scratching up our garden, terrifying our chickens, or growling at my children and dogs. It's not uncommon to wake up to the sound of men who I don't know walking around in my yard talking to their dogs, or calling to them. We also frequently get the pleasure of the hunters parking their trucks in my yard while they sit and talk on their cell phones and we try frantically to shoo their dogs away from our chicken yard. It's a frustrating source of aggravation every year, and every year we get more irritated as these hunters seem to just increase in number, frequency, and rudeness.

In years past we have had ugly confrontation after ugly confrontation with these thug type antler crazed lunatics, but are hoping to avoid that this year. It's bad enough that they want to be so disrespectful of people's homes and yards but we had to draw the line at them screaming at my kids from the window of their trucks. My personal limit was calling "hey baby" to my daughter from the window of the truck. It's enough to make a person just nutty! We've given up on getting any kind of help from the game wardens or sheriff's office so I guess all we can do is ride it out and pray for grace.

So in the spirit of the most insane hunting activity I've ever personally witnessed here's a video about hunting that everyone can enjoy!

Remember?

2009-10-27T00:39:00.005-04:00

Remember the trip we took early this year? We went back home to see family. Here we are with Joshua. He is gonna be totally crushed that he's not the tallest one anymore! Jared has probably got at least a full inch on him now. That picture is at my mom's house and I was exhausted and had a terrible ear infection. The kids were so happy to see their big brother and their grandma again.

There are Jared and Caleb and my friend Sam's son Patrick. Patrick was just a kid when I worked for his dad at the dairy farm and in the bakery they had, now he is married and helping to run his dad's farm. He is also building a really nice house and has grown into quite a nice and interesting young man. Jared likes Patrick's truck..... too bad he didn't learn how to drive a manual transmission before he wrecked Patrick's truck. Patrick being the really nice guy he is told Jared not to worry and still took him and Caleb to a basketball game after the day's work was done on the farm.

I don't care where you take Jared, if there is water he will be in it and he doesn't care if it's February and cold outside. At least he wasn't swimming in the waterfall I guess, that's what I did the last time I went down there. You can't see the waterfall, it's far off to the right, and it's one of my favorite places in the world.

I wish I could show you what it looks like in the late spring or early summer!! Missouri is truly one of the most beautiful places...... but this was mud season, you know, the time between winter and spring.... it's hard to look pretty during mud season.

Jared is sitting there patting the cow (who could care less really), notice in the background Caleb is trying to get Patrick to let him fix the motorcycle and go for a ride through the pasture. Sometimes it's hard to see these boys as brothers, they are so totally different.

This is one of Caleb's favorite pictures ever. He is on the right, Troy is in the middle, and Troy's dad is on the left. Troy's dad could barely see in this picture, he had suffered a small stroke a little over a week before Taeler took the picture. We hadn't realized it because our family hadn't been close but Caleb had never met his grandpa until the trip he and I took back home. Those two go together like peanut butter and jelly, you would never guess that they hadn't spent every day together.

Taeler is standing on the right and the pretty girl on the left is her cousin Genevieve. They are almost exactly 9 months apart in age, Taeler is older, and as little kids they were inseparable. They were always together and we all just naturally said Gen-Gen everytime we said Tae-Tae..... yes, we did call them those goofy little kid names too.

Music has always been a really big part of life in Troy's family..... not on the radio, but live in the livingroom. Troy's dad was thrilled to hear the kids sing and play and was just tickled to pieces that they love bluegrass and gospel as much as he does. I was tickled to sit on the sofa and listen to them play some old gospel songs and listen to the memories they have together. Troy's dad is the one on the left toward the back of the picture, Troy is playing the guitar, his sister Kathy is standing beside him, Taeler is in the blue sitting down on the right, and Jared is sitting on the left. This was a Sunday evening after church so the kids were ready to sit and visit and sing for awhile.

Fred makes a cute cow rider..... that poor cow put up with almost all of us taking turns sitting on her. Yes, I did ride the cow, and NO you can't see the picture!

Taeler and Jared don't really care for milking the cows. They both felt much better watching that particular activity. They both remember doing it when they were younger and not liking it much then. They would rather feed the critters or cut wood or clean something than be in the milking parlor. They didn't stay in there long, they went to wash milk bottles instead.

Caleb loves to milk the cows, didn't mind being in the milking parlor at all and thinks that being a dairy farmer like Sam is the best thing in the world. I could totally see him doing that too, it may be one of the few things he is perfectly suited for.

We had the best time on our visit back home. The time flew by and before we knew it we had to leave. This picture is of my sweet friends you have read about here a few times before. The lady on the right is Miss Willie, and I don't know what I would have done as a young Christian without her. The Lord worked it out so that she was my next door neighbor and her husband Fred is a very nice godly man and was a real blessing to have as a neighbor too. We were able to spend some time with them and I hated to leave. Willie is one of the kindest people I have ever met..... when I was just a foul mouthed, very loud and very lost person moving in next door to her she was kind enough to share her faith with me. The friendship that we have nurtured all these years is beyond anything that either one of us have ever been able to put words to, other than to say "Thank you Lord".

This time of year I get a little extra homesick. I miss my family and friends there, I miss the dairy farm, and the way the woods smell when you go out to cut wood before the hard winter months get there. I miss the Saturday gatherings to cook for Sunday afternoon, and the hunter's breakfasts we would get up at 3 am to start getting ready. I miss sending the kids out to do chores and seeing them running around in their mud boots and carhart coats. I miss all the work we would put into preparing for the winter and for the holidays coming up, and how the ladies always threw in together to get it all done. I miss the "countryness" of it all, and the lack of formality about things.

I miss the hills and the rivers, and even mud season (which happens in the fall too). I look forward to the day when no place on this earth will be a place that I miss, and when I will never again have to say goodbye to someone I love.

Sharing Blessings

2009-09-24T00:50:00.002-04:00

The last few weeks have been quite the roller coaster around here. I'm still struggling with some health issues but I guess that is to be expected. We are trying to find a doctor that has some understanding of the disorder that I have, so far none that we've talked to or met with seem to (even though they seem to think they do). The terrible headaches are still hanging around, along with the dizziness and fainting and falling easily.

Things like that just going on and on and on tend to be kind of discouraging. Today didn't start off as one of the best days either. I went to bed last night feeling bad and woke up feeling worse. Then we got the mail, and went through the bills, and sat down with the calendar and the checkbook, and by the end of that I was in tears and on the verge of falling into a serious pit of worrying. The medical bills are stacking up, the income just keeps on growing less and less, and I was truly tempted to just sit down today and fret myself to bits over the whole mess.

I ended up just going to my room for awhile and prayed. After a little bit I felt a lot better and went on with the day, it was time to get the kid's afternoon lessons done and I had chores stacked up neck deep waiting for me. We read a portion of the Bible and discuss it the first thing after lunch and Troy goes to work.....so today it was Psalm 34.

1 I will bless the LORD at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth.
2 My soul shall make her boast in the LORD: the humble shall hear thereof, and be glad.
3 O magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together.
4 I sought the LORD, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.
5 They looked unto him, and were lightened: and their faces were not ashamed.
6 This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles.
7 The angel of the LORD encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.
8 O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him.
9 O fear the LORD, ye his saints: for there is no want to them that fear him.
10 The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger: but they that seek the LORD shall not want any good thing.
11 Come, ye children, hearken unto me: I will teach you the fear of the LORD.
12 What man is he that desireth life, and loveth many days, that he may see good?
13 Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from speaking guile.
14 Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it.
15 The eyes of the LORD are upon the righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry.
16 The face of the LORD is against them that do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.
17 The righteous cry, and the LORD heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles.
18 The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.
19 Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the LORD delivereth him out of them all.
20 He keepeth all his bones: not one of them is broken.Evil shall slay the wicked: and they that hate the righteous shall be desolate.
21 The LORD redeemeth the soul of his servants: and none of them that trust in him shall be desolate.

As I looked at my Bible and read just the first few verses my eyes filled with tears of thanksgiving. I can't count the times that I've turned to the Lord for help or for comfort or for deliverance from one thing or another and HE has NEVER FAILED. I read in this passage of His deliverance from troubles, fear, and affliction....and every time it talks of it here it says "all". ALL.... I don't guess that leaves out any! I'm so thankful that I have God's Holy Word, for the way it feeds my soul, for the way it comforts me when I'm hurting, for the assurance it gives me when I'm afraid, for the peace it gives me in troubled times, and for the joy that bubbles up from deep within my soul in response to it!

By the time we finished reading that Psalm my 3 kids were so excited they were drumming their feet at the table like they were running in place. Fred was just glowing and writing as fast as she could, Jared was making notes in the margins and then his notebook all while grinning ear to ear with tears on his cheeks, and Caleb just held his Bible as close to his chest as he could get it without putting it in his shirt and just glowed in his quiet way. I'm so thankful that it meant something not only to me, but that it moved the kids too.

What a blessing we found today just by being faithful to read the Bible! I wish I were able to describe it more, or better, or to somehow impart to you how it felt to read those sweet Holy words and know that they applied to me. There just isn't a sweeter feeling than knowing that the Creator of the World loves me enough to mean those words for me! I just had to share.......

It's that time again

2009-09-05T16:12:00.002-04:00

Well, despite a slightly longer than a month migraine and being behind on several of our summer "get it done" plans it's time to start school. I'm excited about schooling, I always am and so are the kids. We will be using the Tapestry of Grace curriculum for the most part this year. We are starting in their "year 3" because we've covered the periods of history taught in the first two and this is Fred's second to last year in school (yikes!!!). I had intended to start school a couple of weeks ago but like I said, I had a month long migraine. So, we are starting a little later than usual, and a little slower but I think we'll be fine anyway.

I'm hoping to feel well enough to finish getting the garden cleaned up and fertilized so we can get a fall garden in this year. It cuts the grocery bill so much when we have fresh veggies, and we all notice a HUGE difference in the way we feel when we eat more of our own foods vs. going to the grocery store. Probably mainly because we get more veggies that way, and those green smoothies we all got so hooked on had Troy losing weight and feeling the best he's felt in years. The kids bought me some heritage kale seeds to try planting and I'm hoping it does well, but what besides soup and smoothies can I use kale for?? I'll have to do some looking for that one....

We harvested a little bit of purple honey a couple of weeks ago.... well, the kids did the work since I was sick. This time it isn't as purple, it seems to have a bit of the darker late summer amber honey mixed in with it but it has the same extra super sweetness that we got before. I don't think that we got two quarts altogether this year but there's still hope for a small bit to come in. People always ask me what the purple honey tastes like, but it's so hard to describe. The closest I've been able to describe it is like grape soda combined with cotton candy only better and smoother. I always say grape Nehi, but no one around here knows what Nehi soda is.....is Nehi soda only in the midwest???

I don't really have a lot to say, but felt like sitting up without vomiting for the first time in weeks so I thought I'd better pop up a quick post so no one back home gets too awful worried. I hope to stay well and take advantage of the cooler weather and get some things caught up around here! We have big plans for more garden space, and a huge strawberry garden, and herb beds. The chickens and doves need new houses built and we have been trying to figure out what to with Fred's new little chickens since they have to be kept separate from the "mutts". I still have a batch of saurekraut to get canned and put away too.

Well, now that I've caught up here a bit I guess I better go see what I can done before I get to feeling too yucky.

39 and counting

2009-08-20T13:49:00.002-04:00

Today is my birthday!!! Usually I dread the day because it always feels like another year that I've failed to accomplish something or another year of one failure after the other in life. This year though I feel victorious in so many different ways. Don't take that to mean that I'm living life on a mountain above problems and heartaches, but the LORD has been so good to me that I just can't see my way to feel anything but blessed beyond anything that words can describe.

I look back over my life and see all the wasted years, all the things and people that I had invested myself in before I was saved and for some time after that were fruitless expenditures of energy that cost me much more than I could pay! It grieves me now to remember the way that I used to mark the passing of the years in my life, to the point of nearly making me physically ill. In so many ways I saw myself as a gift to those around me rather than the other way around and I saw my birthday as a day to celebrate myself..... how horrible of me to have been so vain and selfish as to think that I was worth the attention and effort to celebrate when all I was is something so horrible that it cost my precious LORD his very life! It should never have been all about me, and I pray that I never let anything in my life be like that again.

I'm so thankful that the LORD has allowed me to have 39 years to live and learn and most of all of come to know HIM and to live in HIS family! I am truly blessed beyond anything that I can understand and so thankful for all of the blessings I've been given. I look forward to the day that I see my LORD face to face and can thank HIM for all that I've been given. I'm sure that Heaven is pretty and wonderful, but without knowing that HE is there I'm not so sure I would want to go..... I just want to spend eternity telling of all that HE's done for me and how grateful I truly am!

What we've BEEn up to

2009-07-11T15:46:00.005-04:00

I have no idea why blogger always puts my pics up in reverse order (or how to fix it without a headache) so y'all will have to go through this with me in reverse! One of the things our family has been up to during my long blog absence is pictured in the post today. We got a blessing in helping a family get an unwanted colony of honey bees out of the wall of their home. For most beekeepers this can be a pretty good paying job, but I am one of those people who is simply too softhearted to ever be good at business and so this one paid just about what it cost us to do it. This picture is at the end of the first day we worked on the cut out (because you have to cut the swarm out of the home). The guy wearing the orange shirt was the homeowner..... and they didn't want the bees. I think it was around 10:00 and we were all hot, tired and hearing buzzing even after it stopped.

One of the things I like most about our family is that we are an incredible team. My kids are far from perfect, but I sure can't think of very many other kids that I would be willing to do this kind of stuff with. They dig right in and work like adults, with no complaining or slacking when we are working on something. They are also very safety conscious which makes me feel even better about working with them.

That's me and Jessica (not my kid but I'd take her in a second) smoking the bees off of our bee "vacuum" so we can start extracting another hive full from the house. We took a total of 2 very overfilled hives out of the house and split them with Jessica. I was surprised to find very little honey stored in comparison to the number of bees.

We did find enough brood (un-emerged bee babies) to put in each hive so that whichever one didn't get the queen can raise one from an egg. We had to handle the brood comb extra carefully since we really needed those bee babies to survive.

Here's Troy and Caleb not too long after we got started. Most of the siding is down and Caleb is smoking the bees to keep them from attacking Troy. For the most part though these bees are very calm and we only got a few stings between us during the 3 days of work we had to do.

Since the bees were between the exterior and interior walls of the home, and the homeowners did NOT want us to go through the drywall in their den wall and ceiling we had to vacuum the bees out from outside. That is a slow process but we got it done.

Now the kids are excited and hoping to get more swarm calls. I'll take them but hate the thought of having to feed bees all winter.... sugar just ain't getting any cheaper. This late in the year the bees don't really have a lot of time to build up winter stores so you can almost guarantee that this will be a welfare hive for the first year. Not that we aren't glad to have them, this is our second swarm catch this year and we'll take all we can get.

It's been a good bee year for us so far. We started the year out thinking that we may be getting out of the bees soon because we had taken such big losses with very little reward, we only had two hives at the beginning of spring and they were both a little on the shaky side. We now have 5 and all look to be healthy and well populated. We've also gotten at least a little bit of honey this year and even managed to make a little bit of profit from some of it.

So I guess we'll have bees for awhile longer yet (hooray!!!).

Purple Honey, It's for real

2009-06-12T16:09:00.002-04:00

This post is a sort of odd post for this blog but I learned something very interesting today. If you google "purple honey" this blog is the number 1 result that isn't shopping or ad related content. This blog gets repeated "hits" every day to an old post of mine about the purple honey that our bees produced. I've also received too many emails in response to that post for me to personally respond to them all. So to answer some of those questions and to clarify a few things I'll respond here... and then for fun my kids and I will see how long it takes this post to climb up the ranks in the google search engine.

Yes, our bees made purple honey. Lots of bees can make purple honey. I have also read the book "The Secret Life of Bees" and the teensy little reference there to purple honey. Most of the time when bees produce purple honey it is in smallish amounts and/or mixed with other types of honey within the same hive. We just happened to have an odd and fairly rare outcome of one hive producing nothing but purple honey one summer. For the record I don't believe for one second that it came from bees "sucking" on or eating the juice from elderberries either since this was well after the elderberries here were completely gone as well as the blueberries, blackberries or any other juicy berry.

From what we understand in having researched this issue and spoken with several professional persons in the field of bees and honey production it has to do with several different issues. The soil plays a part in the color of the honey because of it's influence on the mineral content in the plant pollens and nectars that the bees take in. The types of plants that the bees feed on plays a part in the production of purple honey especially in our area because there is such a wide variety of forage available to the bees that it is particularly difficult to isolate what they would be taking in at any given time. The weather also plays a part in the production of the purple honey because if there is too much rain the bees can't forage and if there isn't enough rain certain plants won't bloom and provide food for the bees.

The bees must have the exact conditions present at the exact right time in the bloom cycle to be able to produce purple honey at all. What a lot of people simply don't understand is that honey isn't the sum total of what bees take in, nor is it the bees primary food. Honey is the total of the bee bread, which is made by the bees from pollen and nectar, that has been semi-digested and regurgitated into a cell of honeycomb, then evaporated to the appropriate water density and capped with a bit of fresh wax to store it. Honey is the bee's food of last resort, they simply store it up for the winter months or when there is any other form of a dearth of forage available.

There are several possibilities of which types of blooms produce purple honey but the main gist of it is that to produce any quantity of purple honey the bees must have several different things bloom in a certain order and must have access to each bloom. For example soybeans, kudzu, cotton... those things bloom in that order. I'm not saying that that those are the things that cause purple honey but to show you how the bees would need to first carry the pollen from the soybeans from the iron and magnesium heavy soil to the hive, then the pollen from the kudzu which blooms after the soybeans are finished, then the cotton which is blooming just toward the end of the kudzu bloom.

All of that having been said, if anyone ever gets the opportunity to taste real purple honey that is raw and not pasturized you are definitely in for a TREAT!! There is no flavor like it in the world and we just loved it and hope that our bees make some more soon. I hope that y'all are at least a little bit more clear on purple honey and that at least some of your questions have been answered.

I'll never forget

2009-04-14T16:04:00.002-04:00

One of my children's favorite part of the day is adding to their "I'll Never Forget" journal. After so many years of fighting with the kids to get them to write it hit me one night at the dinner table as I listened to each of them describing their favorite memories that the key to keeping them interested in writing was to have them write about what interested them (duh!). So the next day they each got new notebooks to decorate any way they chose and the command that at least three times per week they were required to write at least a page describing a memory or event that they hope to never forget. None of them ever forget to do that assignment either.

Those journals have become cherished parts of their lives now and many times after they've made a new entry they come bounding into whatever room I'm in to share with me the wonderful (sometimes only to them) memory they just wrote about. I'm so thankful that even in times that I thought our family was in a horrible way for one reason or another my children have found treasured memories and wish never to forget them. Those things that I feared had deeply scarred them or ruined their childhood are often things that were integral parts of one of their favorite memories.

Sometimes in the evenings as we all sit around the table reading or writing or working on whatever project we are desperate to finish we start sharing some of these memories and the conversations that develop in those times are precious to me. I often just sit back and listen as each recollection triggers so many others and it's music to my ears to hear the kids bounce back and forth in a volley that only our family can understand and share. Growing up I thought I would never have that special sense of belonging and "knowing" that comes from being a member of such a close family as what Troy and I have been blessed to have, but it is one of the things I am most thankful to God for allowing me to experience.

As I woke up this morning I lie there in my bed thanking the Lord for the day HE's given me and the time to share it with my family when the tears just started rolling down my face and I had to get down on the floor and just spend time there cuddling up in the arms of grace that have me folded in so securely. I came so close to not having that at all... within minutes of throwing it away so selfishly and foolishly. I'm so thankful that God in HIS perfect wisdom showed me mercy during that time when I truly didn't deserve it at all.

So today, before I forget, I want to remind myself to never forget just how far the LORD has brought this family. To never forget how close I came to losing it all, and that no matter how badly I may want to place the blame 100% on someone else that I have to bear my own part as well. I have prayed and prayed over the last several years that the kids will never forget where the LORD brought us from either, and how pitifully desperate we were, and to remember how blinded we all were to the real cause of our problems at that time. I want to remind myself to never stop being thankful for the grace that has been poured so freely into my life... grace that I never deserved or could earn but that was given to me by my Saviour.

I'll never forget.... who I was before HE found me, what I was and where I was going before HE saved me, and how HE set me free from all that I was a slave to, and where HE is taking me when my time here is over.

I did it again!

2009-04-07T17:27:00.003-04:00

I've gone way too long without a post, but y'all should be used to me by now I suppose. It almost feels like I've been chasing myself around the country. I made two trips to Missouri and back, and one to South Carolina... and when I say "to Missouri" I should say to and all over Missouri since it's never to one location but several that are scattered fairly long distances apart. We logged over 5000 miles in less than 5 weeks... not a personal record but it sure has been a long time since I traveled. It was fun but tiring and kind of expensive considering we usually don't even eat out let alone go somewhere out of state.

I do have new travel tips though.... never ever ever ride through the mountains with an inner ear infection and a driver who is really in a hurry and determined not to be late! Dizziness, met nausea about 10 minutes into that 7 hour drive.... and have you ever tried to read a map in that condition? I'm surprised we didn't end up in Georgia. And after 4 years of not taking any really long trips with the kids I've come to some realizations that just can't be denied. 1)Suddenly there just isn't enough room in the truck for all of us, these kids are HUGE! and 2)Those same "kids" who are suddenly MUCH bigger also have MUCH bigger smells. After sitting in traffic for 2 and a half hours in Nashville I nearly considered trying to make a trade with a young couple in a minivan for their screaming two year old!

Since so much has gone on y'all just have to take the catching up version for now and I'll try (really) to get some pics posted soon... like the ones of the kids riding the cow at the dairy farm, Caleb milking cows, and Troy and his sister and dad playing bluegrass gospel songs at the dinner table. Somehow I never seem to remember that I have a camera until I get home and wish I had taken pictures of all the really good stuff.

Missouri-
Caleb and I went first for nearly two weeks and came back home tired and missing our own beds. Our entire family turned around one week later and went back to Missouri for two weeks. My sweet Hunk O Honey just happened to get a forced week off work (without pay..grrr) so we took a second week of his vacation time and went back home to visit.

We visited my Honey's dad who we hadn't seen in about ten years, went back to our old home town and reminisced and thanked the Lord that HE had seen fit to get us out of there when HE did. We had hoped to go do some extra things like visit the Pony Express museum and the Science center in St. Louis along with Meramec Caverns and the little river towns and old route 66 towns where Troy and I grew up. We also wanted to go see some of the rest of my family but it didn't happen this time. We had a great time visiting with friends and family and hope to get another chance to go visit all of the people and places that we didn't have the time for this trip.

Home-
The garden is already FULL!! I've got 30 cabbage plants, 27 broccoli plants, snow peas, english peas, strawberries (with blooms), spinach and lettuce already producing, basil, potatoes,onions, and pole beans planted. It sounds good but... this .... is.....a.... DISASTER! I want to plant MORE FOOD. The seed catalogs are screaming at me, and with the turn of each page me and Fred run to the window and scan the yard frantically for places to put in gardens. I have corn seed... very special corn seed that I MUST PLANT. and limas, and more beans, and carrots, and there has to be a place for the tomatoes and peppers to live!!!!!!! Maybe we'll cut down some more trees and who needs grass... I don't eat grass and I hate to mow so maybe my entire yard should just be growing FOOD. I'll be okay, really.... I just need more garden!

The kids are trying to get back into the swing of schooling, but it's garden time and that's about all we can think about once the sun rises. Troy says I should just switch on over to our "summer schedule" which means get up early and garden, school during the afternoons and evenings and chores before bed. Sounds great except the whole part where I'M OUT OF GARDEN SPACE.

I'm behind on everything.... again. (except the garden) I need to start Caleb's quilt that he asked me to make for his birthday. Spring cleaning is a definite need around here! Plus Jared has been patiently waiting since last fall for me to get the furniture rearranged so we can bring his piano home from the home of nice couple who gifted it to him in answer to prayer. (that one is not entirely my fault, I'm not allowed to rewire things and it requires that the phone line get moved) How is it that every drawer, closet, cabinet, and storage space somehow between September and March gets stuffed to bursting point with mostly useless JUNK?? My Hunk O Honey likes to ~~accumulate anything he can carry~~ items that he might find a use for in the future and that accounts for a lot of it... but seriously, where does the rest of it come from? I swear that anything we don't use on a regular basis somehow multiplies and then mutates and then the mutated items multiply and so on and so on until every single millimeter of space is consumed with totally useless JUNK. Maybe I should just have a really really HUGE bonfire! I wonder if I can even find the matches?

The kids have been accumulating ~~junk~~ gently used items from our home in hopes of having a yard sale, they are trying to raise money for more chicks and new beekeeping gear since they have outgrown all that we had for them and to make new salves and soaps and stuff to restock their business. Needless to say the kids yard sale collection is trying to take over around here. Every day I ~~nearly kill myself falling~~ carefully step around the various piles, boxes, and bags of items. I'm glad that the kids are so interested in earning money but I'm liable to break something.... at what age do we get more breakable??am I there yet?

Besides the trips to Missouri I have been fighting a horrible ear infection that just isn't even considering leaving me alone. Even while we were gone to Missouri my ears got so bad and I was so sick that for 4 days I just laid on the floor at Troy's dad's holding my ears.... Troy decided that I had to go to the doctor and get MORE antibiotics though. I HATE antibiotics....seriously, but have now had two rounds of injections and four rounds of oral antibiotics in increasingly stronger varieties along with two injections (i really hate those, i suddenly feel like a little kid all over again every time) of steroids to help with the swelling in my ears. The last visit to the doc resulted in words like "tubes" and "tonsilectomy" and "specialist" so for now I'm just dealing with it and praying praying praying praying.

Well, that's all the time I have now. The piles of stuff are scheming and plotting a hostile takeover of the livingroom as I type. The kids are claiming to be finished with their schoolwork but there is a mysterious tone in the end of their sentence that tells me they only mean it if I do. The mess in the kitchen is multiplying while I sit here but somehow it still hasn't produced the new pots and pans that I need no matter how long I wait. The dogs are giving me "the look"... the one that says "is your seat attached to that seat or am I gonna get my biscut?".... so off I go to tend the things in my life that despite my rants and ramblings I truly do love.

Y'all have a good day!

I'm not even sure where to start

2009-02-28T00:46:00.003-05:00

The trip to Missouri seemed so much longer than it was and I'm exhausted. I got back yesterday evening just in time to get the kids cleaned up and loaded in the truck for the last service of our church's missions conference this year. I hated missing the rest of the services and can't wait to hear the tapes.

Things back home were complicated to say the least, but the Lord blessed me during the trip in so many ways that I would never have expected. NOTHING turned out the way that I (or anyone else for that matter) had planned it to, but thankfully the Lord works out all things to the good of them who love HIM and are called according to HIS purpose.

I was able to visit with my good friend Mrs. Willie for a couple of days! I really have missed her so badly over the years for so many different reasons. Now that we have again laid eyes on each other and shared the news both good and bad from the turns in the road of life we both feel better. How much fun we had sitting together and with tears of joy pouring down our years worn faces tell of the countless blessings from the Lord in our lives from the last few years! I left well hugged, well fed, and nearly out of preaching tapes and cds but full of joy and thanksgiving for the unexpected opportunity to fellowship with one of my all time favorite people.

It did make me really sad to see how badly the little town I used to live in is looking though. All the buildings are falling apart and nothing looks loved and cared for anymore, it used to be such a sweet little place and looked well tended and was a wonderful representative of all the things that folks hope for in a small community but apparently none of those good things are in proper working order anymore. It's sad that the people in my generation and younger just don't see the need to simply pull together and do those things that are so very worth the doing! Willie had told me that there are no young mothers who are willing to bring their children to the afternoon young people's meetings anymore so they don't have them and there is no one who is willing or able to help with the vacation bible school anymore so they don't have those either. I actually found myself saying to Caleb over and over "aren't you glad we don't live here anymore?!"

I also got the opportunity to visit with some of my other old friends and was even able to give the gospel to a man who had refused to hear it for as many years as I've known him. What a blessing to go back all these years later and see so many people who had told me that time and age would change my mind about the Lord and let them see that I still stand for the same things all these years later! My favorite part of my visit to our old hometown was the opportunity to take Caleb and show him the house that I was saved in 15 years ago tonight.

I was able to visit with Troy's dad and his wife for awhile too. Troy's dad is amazingly talented especially when it comes to growing corn and tomatoes. I came home armed with seeds for the garden and plenty of instructions and ideas for a better crop this year. Caleb had a great time visiting his grandfather and even got to watch his older brother and sister on an old family video from before he was born. We hadn't realized until I was there that Troy hasn't seen his dad in nearly 10 years. We got so busy with life and raising the kids and trying to work and pay bills and DO so much that we just got terrible at keeping up and maintaining those relationships. Troy and I are praying praying praying about making a second trip to Missouri within the next few weeks so that we can spend a little time with family and friends that we love and care about but have been displaced from by time and distance.

I thought I would have some great pictures to post but there was a minor accident with my camera as we came through the mountains and the pictures were lost. Caleb says he is very sorry.

~~Some~~ ~~most~~ Nearly all of the pictures were of my super adorable little grandbabies who I finally got to meet.... and feed insane amounts of ice cream to. What a joy to finally see them and kiss their chubby little cheeks and hold their little hands and see how much they remind me of my little Jessi all those years ago when I was young. There were pictures of Jessi and Joshua on there too, but mostly just those precious little girls who I waited so very long to see.

There is much more to tell, but I'm so tired I can't even see anymore. Have a wonderful night everyone!

I'll be gone awhile

2009-02-12T01:01:00.002-05:00

After 4 years of being here I'm finally making a trip back home to visit my family and friends. I only wish it was under different circumstances and that my family wasn't being fragmented in order for it to happen. My mother is having a very extensive and difficult surgery on her back and I'll be going home to help her until she is well enough to take care of herself. Because of the expense involved and the fact that my sweet Hunk O Honey has to work I will be making the trip with only my youngest son. My Hunk O Honey, Jared and Fred will all be left here to tend things while I'm gone.

It feels so strange to split our family apart this way!!! We NEVER separate.... ever.... at least until now. I'm praying for a safe trip and quick return to health for my Mom. We are also praying for the funds necessary to make the trip, I'm going regardless but it would really be nice to be able to pay the bills too! I'll try to put up a post while I'm there if I can, but with sporadic dial up or the web on my cell phone I'm not sure how much I'll be online.

Take care everybody.

Hillbilly Housewife

2009-01-26T16:58:00.002-05:00

I used to love the Hillbilly Housewife site, but it always bothered me that the new owner called herself the "creator" of the website when in fact it was Miss Maggie who was responsible for the original recipes and information that drew the massive number of visitors to the page to begin with. I loved that she offered her information freely, without bombarding us with ads or trying to sell us more of her ideas, and I always appreciated her humility and generosity in doing those things. The "new" Hillbilly Housewife site seems to be a very cluttered up "knock off" of the original without giving any consideration to all of Miss Maggie's very much appreciated hard work.

For all of those reasons and because a few other ladies had expressed the same thoughts I wanted to post about the internet archive and tell you all how wonderful it is. Just go to archive.org and type the name of the website or it's web address in the "Wayback Machine's" search feature. It's really very simple and you get the original page with it's information just the way it was when it was filed. There are also video and audio files there among more stuff than I could ever begin to describe here.

I sure did miss the original Hillbilly Housewife and Miss Maggie!

Great spinach recipe

2009-01-26T16:42:00.002-05:00

We just tried this recipe the other night and it's WONDERFULLY GOOD!!!! Even Jared who notoriously despises anything that might even remotely resemble cooked spinach loved it and ate 3 very large helpings. I borrowed the recipe from Tammy's recipes and just adapted it a little bit to suit our tastes a bit more. I think next time I make it I might just add a little bit of grated carrot and some mushrooms if I happen to have them just for kicks.

Spinach rice and cheese casserole
8-10 ounces fresh spinach
1 T water
2 T chopped onion*
1 c cooked rice*
1 c shredded cheese*
1/3 c milk
2 eggs beaten
1 t salt*
1 T worchestershire sauce*

In a small bowl add water to spinach and cook in microwave or in a pan over med/lo heat just until wilted. Mix remaining ingredients together and add spinach, then pour into 8x8 baking dish and bake at 325 degrees for 35-40 minutes or until the center is set.

***** Here's what I did. I just used the original amount of spinach because that just happened to be what I had on hand, but then I tripled everything else and cooked it all at 350 in a 9x13 baking dish. I used about a half cup of onion because I learned a long time ago that onion will mask the "green food" taste of spinach quite well and that seems to help make it more palatable for those who don't care for the taste of spinach. I also used brown rice because someone so sweetly gave our family a bag of it and we just LOVE the flavor of brown rice, I'm sure white rice tastes wonderful too, but we wanted it with brown rice that day. I used cheddar cheese but after having this dish I would love to try it with some swiss cheese or even a really sharp cheddar or a mix of a few different cheese would probably be really good. I cut the amount of the worchestershire sauce to 1 teaspoon for the triple batch, but I should have also cut the amount of salt since the dish still tasted pretty salty but still good.

I hope you enjoy it.

Have you ever?

2008-12-20T00:41:00.003-05:00

I always seem to get busy and then just don't take the time to update.... again... I'm sorry! Things have been going really good for the most part. We've been busy getting ready for Christmas and enjoying the decorating and singing and cooking! Miss Willie has made me promise to post soon about my former ugly feelings toward all things "Christmas" and how the Lord has worked in my heart to make it a wonderful season for our family so I will try to get that posted soon. Today I had 12 children all day and am too tired to go into it so I am just going to post my "have you ever" that Miss Willie asked me to put up with a promise to post again soon.

Have you ever?
Bold the things you’ve done.

1. Started your own blog I was terrified of making a mess of it but I did it anyway and have enjoyed it for the most part.

2. Slept under the stars It used to be something that I did often, and it was something that Troy I did together our first night together.

3. Played in a band I was in both marching band and regular band in school. I played the flute and tried to play the clarinet and sax sometimes too.

4. Visited Hawaii

5. Watched a meteor shower The kids and I used to love to do that back home, it was so much easier to get away from the lights of a town then. We were also blessed enough to see a rare red aurora one night too!

6. Given more than you can afford to charity

7. Been to Disneyland/world

8. Climbed a mountain

9. Held a praying mantis Remind me to tell you about Taeler's "pet" praying mantises... it's hysterical!

10. Sang/played a solo both at different times over the years.

11. Bungee jumped

12. Visited Paris

13. Watched a lightning storm at sea

14. Taught yourself an art from scratch... does soapmaking count?

15. Adopted a child

16. Had food poisoning never never never buy a sandwich from a cooler no matter how sweet the lady selling them seems!

17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty

18. Grown your own vegetables

19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France

20. Slept on an overnight train

21. Had a pillow fight

22. Hitch hiked I used to hitch rides all over the country when I was younger.

23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill Not very often but thankfully the job that I had at the time was very accomodating.

24. Built a snow fort

25. Held a lamb I used to love helping out during lambing season! I love sheep and would still have them if I could!

26. Gone skinny dipping

27. Run a Marathon

28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice

29. Seen a total eclipse

30. Watched a sunrise or sunset people who can't relax enough to enjoy such a sweet pleasure are truly depriving themselves!

31. Hit a home run

32. Been on a cruise

33. Seen Niagara Falls in person

34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors

35. Seen an Amish community
Once upon a time I spent large amounts of time in Amish communities.

36. Taught yourself a new language sort of... it goes along with the whole lots of time in Amish communities thing... long story.

37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied

38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person

39. Gone rock climbing That used to be one of my favorite things to do... not the yuppie kind of rock climbing with the fancy shoes and skin tight spandex though. More the hillbilly style, "this is the way to get home " kind.

40. Seen Michelangelo’s David

41. Sung karaoke years ago and badly!

42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt

43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant

44. Visited Africa

45. Walked on a beach by moonlight

46. Been transported in an ambulance

47. Had your portrait painted

48. Gone deep sea fishing

49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person

50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris

51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling

52. Kissed in the rain

53. Played in the mud

54. Gone to a drive-in theater
We used to go at least once a month and Troy would grill burgers while the movie played.

55. Been in a movie

56. Visited the Great Wall of China

57. Started a business

58. Taken a martial arts class

59. Visited Russia

60. Served at a soup kitchen

61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies

62. Gone whale watching

63. Gotten flowers for no reason

64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma

65. Gone sky diving

66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp

67. Bounced a check

68. Flown in a helicopter

69. Saved a favorite childhood toy

70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial

71. Eaten Caviar

72. Pieced a quilt

73. Stood in Times Square

74. Toured the Everglades

75. Been fired from a job

76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London

77. Broken a bone

78. Been on a speeding motorcycle

79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person

80. Published a book

81. Visited the Vatican

82. Bought a brand new car

83. Walked in Jerusalem

84. Had your picture in the newspaper

85. Read the entire Bible

86. Visited the White House

87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating

88. Had chickenpox

89. Saved someone’s life

90. Sat on a jury

91. Met someone famous

92. Joined a book club

93. Lost a loved one

94. Made a baby

95. Seen the Alamo in person

96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake

97. Been involved in a law suit

98. Owned a cell phone

99. Been stung by a bee

Well, I'm off to get chores finished up so I can go to bed. I hope all of you have a wonderful Christmas!

Saving on Alfredo Sauce

2008-11-14T15:16:00.003-05:00

I know this is NOT healthy, and I know that real cream and real butter taste better... believe me I know. Y'all will never know how much I miss working on the dairy farm and all the benefits that brought to me and my family that couldn't be measured in dollar signs and zeros. But I'm getting sidetracked (again) and today I just don't have time for that.

Anyway, as I was saying before I so rudely interrupted myself. I love to be able to save a little here and a little there on our grocery bill and I totally can't stand the thought of eating boring food so I conjure up as many ways as I can to make foods that I love and my family will eat on as little cash as possible. We LOVE alfredo sauce, on noodles, chicken, on potatoes, to dip ~~fingers~~ garlic bread in and on broccoli (I know I'm strange... surprise surprise right). With our mad love for that creamy goodness on our food we could stand for hours and scowl with bitter hatred at the price signs on the cream and butter ...... or we could just improvise.

Take 1 stick of margarine... (or bought on sale with tripled coupons and therefore free blue bonnet or country crock or whatever... I love triples!!) and melt that in your saucepan. While that melts mix up a double strength 2 cup batch of powdered milk (or regular milk or bought on sale with triple coupons and therefore dirt cheap canned milk... gotta love triples!!). When your NOT butter melts add your NOT milk in slowly and stir the whole time and turn your heat down to low/medium so you don't scorch it. Let the NOT milk and NOT butter cook together for awhile, stir it up often so you don't get a gross skin on the pan that makes it taste bad. Let it cook until the NOT butter doesn't float on the top anymore, then add 1 cup of the cheapo grated parmesan I used the kind in a plastic jar with the shaker top that you get at ALDI and whisk it altogether. I tossed in a sprinkle of garlic powder and a sprinkle of cayenne a little salt and pepper and cooked it long enough for the NOT cheese to be blended in with the rest of it and called it done!

We had a bag of salad shrimp in the freezer that I got for a buck and a bag of broccoli Steamers that I got for free with a coupon so I threw that in with some rotini pasta that I got for 16 cents a box on a triple coupon sale and we had Shrimp Alfredo with broccoli for supper last night. My kids made all kinds of interesting sounds to express their tremendous approval ratings, and my Hunk O Honey called from lunch today after he ate his serving and pronounced it to be tastier than Olive Garden leftovers! Let me know how yours turns out!

A little this a little that

2008-11-12T00:45:00.002-05:00

Well, it's late and we've been busy (when aren't we?)so here I am feeling more than a little bit random so this will just be one of those shotgun style posts that I'm so prone to.

Unlike the past few years when our schooling has been done on the run or put off until the absolute last minute and procrastinated to the point of being forgotten we have actually been very faithful and are maintaining steady progress! I was almost afraid that the kids would just totally rebel against having things in the day that were so suddenly consistent after just sort of drifting along for so long but they have latched onto the *plan* and clutched it like it gave them breath. Not really, but they are very routine driven now and it has gone a long way to stopping some of the arguing and bickering that used to be the main focus of the day for them.

The only thing about being so dedicated to our studies that I've found to be a problem is that now we get next to nothing done outside! The boys and I had been taking a couple of hours a day to go cut wood but now that my sweet Hunk O Honey has a new saw I don't have to do that anymore and the boys are doomed to spend nearly the entire day studying. We are planning on taking some breaks here and there for different things .... like building the new pen for the goatie girls, and the new chicken house (or guinea house as soon as I make up my mind who to move)and to get the garden cleared (again!) so I can get my garlic planted, and to get the new garden beds started for spring. Then there are also the extra meetings coming up and that usually means some time out of school.... my kids think that just beats the whole notion of spring break all to bits.

I caught myself missing winter today! I saw a picture of *real* snow like we used to get back home. The kind of snow that is over a foot deep and the big long drippy icicles that hang off of the eaves of the houses and I actually... sorta... felt a little bit sad that we don't have that anymore. But then I walked outside *without a coat on* and shook it off as I reveled in the beauty of the warm sunny afternoon. The kids miss sledding and Troy misses the real winters, I can take them or leave them. I love the idea of the snow covered landscape and the pretty ice, but the reality of power outages for days at a time in the dead of winter or being snowed in holds ZERO appeal to me. We always dealt well with winter but now that we've tasted the longer growing season and less heating expense/effort I'm spoiled.

We are also very very spoiled to pie again! I was being a good girl and not baking all the time. Troy lost quite a few pounds and I lost enough to have to hold up my skirts if I went walking around, but now it's all coming back to us. The temperatures cooled down and the oven got turned back on. Homemade bread, several times a week (cheaper than store bought and tastes so much better!!).... plus PIE, the perfect food for all humans is pie. Didn't your mother tell you that??!! neither did mine, but I hold that as a firm belief anyway. We have had apple pie, pumpkin pie, beef pie, beef and tomato pie, chicken and veggie pie, pumpkin pie, pumpkin pie and pumpkin pie!!!!! In fact I have a half eaten piece of pumpkin pie sitting on a plate in front of me taunting me right now. My kids have all grown up saying "life is hard, but some days there's pie".... that pretty much sums it up for us too.

I have still had some struggles with my health but we are managing to keep things going anyway. Did you know that shingles really hurt?? and that you can get them before you are even 40!!! even if you didn't think that you had ever had chicken pox?? What a rip off! Actually the cream that the doctor gave me helps a lot, but they still really really really hurt!

Well, this totally random and very all over the place post is getting long and my bed is calling my name... but first I have to finish my PIE! I hope everyone in blogland is doing well and staying healthy. Bye for now.

Here we all are

2008-10-27T15:51:00.002-04:00

There is the whole bunch of us... dressed in our old fashioned day finest. My boys are getting way too big, and I don't like being the shortest one in the family! We sure did have fun.

Old Fashioned Fun

2008-10-27T09:19:00.013-04:00

Yesterday we had Old Fashioned Sunday at church. It was a HOOT! Everyone wore old fashioned clothes, and there was some great old fashioned preaching (never can have enough of that), old fashioned praying, and old fashioned praising the Lord!

There's a picture for ya Miss Willie. Jared is the one playing the guitar on the far right. He plays music with two of our Pastor's sons and another young man in our church who is quite talented as well. The Lord has really blessed them with some great talent. I'm so thankful that each of these young men are using their talents for the Lord!!!

The kids had a blast (so did most of the grown ups). There were shooting competitions for the kids. Jared is a scary good shot with a shotgun, but I forgot to ask how he did with a bb gun. Caleb is the one standing right behind him (I told y'all they were getting big!).

And there was a pie eating contest.... My boys looked forward to that all week long. Jared and Jon won first together in the closest tie I've ever seen. Caleb took a very green gilled second place. Maybe I should have fed them some protein for breakfast to offset the sudden influx of sugar and chocolate??!!

These boys all looked like they were having the greatest time until about a minute and a half into the contest, then a few of them started looking a tiny bit ill. Every one of them gave it a great try though and I know they will not forget it any time soon.

Believe it or not both of the boys ate a large lunch afterward and then a few hours later at several helpings of food again! Now y'all know why we are so crazy about trying to get the gardens to produce...

This last picture is great. There was also tug of war contests of nearly every variety. What fun the boys had thinking they were beating the men! They are so cute. Thankfully, I have no pictures of the ladies playing tug of war... otherwise known to me and "dust the yard with your dress". I'll try to put up more pictures when I get them, especially of Fred's outfit that she made since it's the first thing she has ever really sewn and she did such a wonderful job. It was lots of fun and the kids are already hoping and planning for another one. Make sure you check out Steph's blog for some more great pictures of some of the folks in their old fashioned finest.

Just way too much fun

2008-10-22T00:16:00.002-04:00

I keep telling myself I'm going to put a new post up on this blog.... and usually I mean it. I have some new recipes I would really like to share with y'all and some more ways that our family is saving on things around the house and enjoying it. It seems like lately though we are just having so much fun doing all of those things that we stay way too busy doing to turn around in the same spot twice that I just haven't had the time to sit down and type out one good post.

I'm really really super sorry! Will y'all forgive me?

I can give you a quick update on all that we've been accomplishing if that helps any. Fred is learning to sew... sort of. I sew kind of like I cook, I get an idea and sort of a basic plan to follow and dive right in making adjustments as needed; then if it works out we all love it and if it doesn't work out we turn it into something else. So poor little Fred, my sweet girl who is someday going to have to learn to do this the right way, is making a dress for old fashioned Sunday at church. So far it looks great, just way way too big... but I think I can fix that too. Then we are making me a dress and whatever else we have the time to make.

We are slowly but surely reclaiming our garden (again) from the weeds and wildlife. I found myself just today having quite the talk with one of the resident bunnies who has decided to live there and eat all that we plant... I only wish I was joking with you. The kids and one of our neighbor ladies just stood there slack jawed while I told this little rabbit that since it wasn't rabbit season just yet he had very little time to finish packing up and move on, but that if he just couldn't pull it together and get out of there... well then I was going to have no choice but to collect all of the months of rent and board that he has stolen from us. He just sat there on his hind legs gladly chewing away on one of our bean plants looking at me like we have this conversation on a regular basis. I almost hope he sticks around, wild bunny makes great stew.

The boys and I have been slowly but surely gathering as much firewood as we can, but it's slow going right now. We are all very sore and really wishing that my sweet Hunk O' Honey had the daylight hours and a chainsaw to cut our wood!! It's good exercise though and we've had enough wood to keep warm everyone of these really chilly nights except for one and it wasn't too terrible.

We are working on starting our garden beds closer to the house for the veggies this spring too... it's still in the planning stages but at least this time we are planning instead of just tossing seeds in the ground. We will still have the huge garden in the back but I think we will be better off with some things closer to the house in smaller and more manageable beds. We put in a fall salad garden in a cloche so that we can (prayerfully) still harvest some lettuce and spinach over the cooler and maybe even cold months, and we are hoping to add some other veggies soon.

On top of that we are still schooling everyday and taking care of all the critters and doing all of the other things that we normally do. The Lord has been so good to our family in giving us such blessings!

I'll try to put up a better post soon!
Take care everyone.

Saving on Eye Makeup Remover

2008-10-02T01:33:00.002-04:00

I know it sounds like a really silly place to pinch pennies but I really am in a penny pinching mood lately. Few people realize just how drastic our pay cut was but I'm in a mood for honesty lately too so I'll let the cat out of the bag a little bit here... it was nearly half. So, to put it bluntly when you lose half (almost) of what you make and then turn around and take an additional sum out of each paycheck for health insurance (unfortunately for us a necessary evil) you get extreme about pinching pennies. I have read lately about folks who have lost LOTS and LOTS of money in the recent stock downturns so nearly everyone is looking for ways to save some money.

Okay...so anyway. I ran out of eye makeup remover and don't you know that good old Maybelline waterproof whatever it's called in the pink tube that I've worn since junior high mascara don't come off with just any old thing! I read a few articles here and there and got mega frustrated and irritated and kept telling myself to just go to the store and fork out the $5 or whatever for a bottle of the cheapo waterproof eye makeup remover... but I just couldn't make myself do it, even when I found a coupon! I kept thinking about it and I hate the way it makes my skin feel, I hate the greasy feeling on my eyes and I hate the smell of it and I hate the oily feel of it, and I hate that I have to pay for something that I hate to use.

I ended up using Google (of course) and trying out a few different recipes and then tinkering with them to get them just right for me. This is what I ended up with and I love it.

Homemade Eye Makeup Remover
2 Tablespoons baby shampoo
you can use the brand of your choice but make sure that it doesn't sting! They all say they do but we all know that some of them are lying. My test batch was actually make with Johnson and Johnson's Vapor Bath because that just happened to be what I had on hand, it worked but did give me a little "zing" that some people won't appreciate.

1/4 tsp oil of choice
I say oil of choice because some people are extremely opposed to using mineral oil. I used it in my 1st test batch, but to see if other oils would work I also tried safflower and castor oil and olive oil. All of them worked well enough for me.

3/4 to 1 cup of water
If your water is heavily chlorinated you might want to boil it first. Mix the ingredients together slowly and put into a container of your choice but you will want one with a lid that you can store conveniently.

To use this just saturate a cotton ball with it and hold it over your eye for a few seconds then gently swish the makeup off. I love not having the greasy feeling and my eyelashes feel healthy and soft instead of crunchy and itchy all the time. I used to have lots of gunk in the corners of my eyes in the morning when I woke up but now they feel clean (tired but clean).

I haven't calculated how much this actually saves because I know it varies tremendously from person to person. I imagine that a sample size bottle of baby shampoo would last me a good long while though.

So that's it, another easy way to save a little bit of money.

We're all caught up !!!!!!

2008-09-30T23:55:00.003-04:00

Hi there. Just thought I would pop in to make a quick post so no one anywhere gets the notion that I've fallen off the planet or become too ill to post or that some other catastrophe of sorts has hit us. We just tend to stay busy, and I'm learning that I really like it that way best. Even when the kids were little I was always running and going and doing stuff, all this time I blamed it on living right in the middle of the little one light town we were in... and the little old lady brigade just loves to pop in at the one and only intersection of the town, it makes a great multi-purpose visit.

Anyway, before my medicated brain becomes to mired down in the details of years gone by.. We are in fact busy almost all the time. School is going very very well here. In fact (please insert your own overly dramatic and long...long .....long drumroll) all 3 of the kids plus our extra student are right on target for where they should be and are even a few lessons ahead of where they should be and (insert trumpet sounds and so on..) have begun their first big major writing project of the year! (now insert HUGE, GIANT, sigh of relief from formerly panicked and weary and frazzled mom)

I'm so glad that finally we can say we are caught up! Since withdrawing the kids from the public schools (where they were already horribly behind) then the series of moves, followed by my series of health failures, followed by my series of "how in the world do I ever get caught back up" panic attacks, followed by my series of "where in the world do I start trying to get caught up now" panic attacks.... etc.... (more trumpets) we are caught up!!Despite our really bizarre schedule of half dayshift half nights among the zillion other reasons that most people would guess we would do poorly!

Sorry for going on and on... part of me is just dying to call Caleb's old teachers and tell them that they have no clue what they are talking about. You see, once upon a time we were told that Caleb (though a total pain in the rear at times, but otherwise normal) would never develop the ability to read, write or communicate through the written language at all... or at least not beyond the level of a 2nd or 3rd grade student. We were told this after months of grueling tests and classroom problem after classroom problem and finally a diagnosis of him being "severely dyslexic". He's severely normal and that's about it, only now he is severely normal and doing the schoolwork that other severely normal 7th graders are doing... and he is doing it very well.

Taeler and Jared are both doing very very well too, and our extra little student is doing great work and follows along with the other three wonderfully (almost all of the time). I almost just can't believe how well school is going this year! I have no idea how I stumbled onto this or how things came to work this was so well, but I pray it keeps up! The kids are eyeing out more essay contests and contests for other areas of learning... not for the competition but because they have begun to really enjoy researching things like that and participating on a larger scale that just within the family.

I can't believe how fast they grow!!

Why half wrap a gift?

2008-09-24T15:26:00.003-04:00

Weddings are all I hear about lately when I call back home. Cousins and friends and the children of friends that I went to school with and worked on the fire department with are all talking about them. It seems like everyone is having a wedding or knows someone who is. I've looked at dozens of pictures of dresses that have been sent via email over the last couple of weeks and though there are subtle variances in style and shades of fabric the one thing that stands out is that there is so little fabric.

I've always thought of the wedding dress as the gift wrapping of the bride for the groom. It should be beautiful and elegant and carefully chosen to communicate the care that was taken to keep her pure for her groom. But that is not the case in the dresses I've seen! They all but stand up on their own and scream "soap opera hussy". I don't understand why any woman would want to openly display what is supposed to have been reserved for her husband. Why only partially wrap that gift you have so carefully prepared for him? You would never dream of walking down the aisle with your hair un-styled, or your makeup not done to perfection, so why so brazenly display half of your body?

Okay, now that I've got that off my chest I have emails to answer. Sorry for my little rant. It just bothers me! One of these gowns is really little more than a bikini with a nearly sheer layer over the legs and I had to let it out before I explode.

My quick list

2008-09-16T11:58:00.002-04:00

I know I've been gone awhile, not too terribly long but long enough to get an email or two wondering why no new blog posts. I have ~~reasons~~ excuses, lots of them actually, but I'll only list a few because I'm in a hurry. LIFE is screaming at me to get back to it and live it before it passes me by!

There was this really incredible Baptist Heritage Conference at another church near us so we went. Fred and Jared had both written essays (they both won 1st place in the essay contest ((hoooray!!!))) and we wanted to hear the preaching and just learn more about the REAL history of our country, not the junk that was forced down our throats by the lying public school system that Troy and I grew up in. I would strongly encourage anyone who wants to strengthen their faith to search out the truth of what our forefathers (and the ladies too!) went through to preserve our freedoms in this country! A good place to start is to read James Beller's book "America in Crimson Red". The same author also offers some fantastic homeschool materials that we will be learning from this year.

Our new student is moving right along in school this year and is a joy to have! She does struggle a little bit with not being the only child in the house (read: NOT being the boss and telling every one else what to do and when) but that is working out fairly easily).

I am still struggling with my health. Now, my almost non english speaking neurologist is trying me on a medication that is for epilepsy and it has turned my world upside down. I am praying that I get used to it quickly and if not that I can find some other alternative (both to the medication and the doctor).

Troy is praying about his job. I won't go into too many details, the Lord has been so good to us. We are just asking the Lord to give us reassurance that we are totally in HIS will in this area.

Oh yeah, the list.... see, this medicine makes my mind wander. I've been busy. The weather was so nice and the kids were so cute and life was so interesting and then there were these days that I didn't feel well, and then there were these great meetings to go to, and then there were these hungry people to feed and interesting conversations to have and who had time to blog with all of that going on!

Have a great day!

Home-school Fun

2008-08-30T13:02:00.002-04:00

All summer long the kids and I were studying idioms and slang and different figures of speech. We became fascinated with learning the origins of different "figures of speech" and such and so a small study on this has become part of our schooling. This website has a pdf printable series called 'An Idiom A Day Will Help Keep Boredom Away' that we have really enjoyed using! It became a very easy way to encourage the kids to stretch their writing skills and their imaginations on a daily basis without boring them to tears.

We talked alot about how challenging it can be for someone just learning to speak english to understand what we mean when we use such 'language tricks' but the kids just couldn't quite grasp why it would be so difficult for someone to understand what they have always been used to saying. I kept remembering an old cartoon from when I was a kid about a guy who died and stood at the gate of Heaven trying to relay his life story to St. Peter but was trapped by all of his slang and idiom filled speech. I have spent nearly a year now looking for that cartoon to show it to the kids.... and taaaa-daaaaa, I've found it! I thought I would share it here and now I'll be able to find it again later... you know, for research purposes.

a week already?

2008-08-29T19:21:00.003-04:00

Time sure does seem to just fly lately! We have finished our first week of full day schooling and all of the kids are loving it! We have a new little person (a sweet little girl in our church family) in our school this year too. We were a little bit nervous about how it would go but so far she loves home-schooling, and is fitting in with our crazy bunch very well. We started school with the ambitious plan of schooling the entire day... meaning as long as possible during the week, even into the evening hours. It sounds like a lot of work but the kids are enthusiastically taking on the challenge and I sure don't have the extra energy to get in the way and slow them down.

With all the school work going on you would think that they would be too busy to fight and fuss with each other at all wouldn't you? Fat chance! My boys were fighting so badly the other morning that me and Troy had to rush in and break them up... not before one got a black eye and the other got swats for his behavior. Other than just being extra tired and a little stressed I can't figure out what has sparked all the fighting with the boys lately. They seem to have more trouble getting along now than they have since they were 2 and 3 years old.

My poor Hunk 'O Honey is sure tired lately. He has been working every time they will let him clock on! I sure do hope we are able to pay off those medical bills that are left over from our time without insurance soon and take care of a couple of other things so he can slow down a little bit. I worry about him working so much. There is a very slight chance though that he could get a position that pays just a bit more and...... IS ON DAY SHIFT DURING THE WEEK!!!!! It's a very very small chance because he doesn't have much seniority yet but still we are praying that the Lord will work it out for us! The night shift is hard on him and us, and add to that the pay cut he took to get the job and sometimes he gets discouraged about it all. If we happen to cross your mind please keep that in prayer?!

Tuesday coming up marks me and Troy's 17th year! I can't believe it's been that long since the two of us went from being two totally separate crazy people to being the two of us! I'm trying to think of something special to do to celebrate but I'm kind of dry on ideas and funds right now. If you think of something send me an email!

Well, I'm off to try to fix food for me and 8 kids... then I have laundry and ironing to get done. Have a great weekend!

Saving on Italian Sausage

2008-08-21T00:34:00.002-04:00

I don't know about anybody else but we don't think that certain foods taste right without italian sausage. Whether you like it hot or mild/sweet it ain't cheap! The last time I had to get some it was $3.99 for 1 pound.... definitely not something we can usually afford to keep on hand. So being the 'save every chance I get' kind of girl I read a few different recipes and then tinkered around until I created one of my own. Since I stink at math you can figure out how much it saves if you decide to make your own. I make mine bulk style, if you want to use casings then go for it but be warned it takes some practice to do it right. From past experience I can warn you that you will want the meat to be as cold as possible while filling the casings!

Homemade Italian Sausage

Start with 2lbs of meat. Last night I used ground beef because I found an unbelievable deal on it awhile back and happened to have it on hand. You can also use ground pork, turkey, venison or whatever you want. To be truly authentic you would want to use a pork shoulder roast and grind it yourself but I'm more frugal with my time than my money even so unless I'm already grinding meat, or I find pork shoulder roasts so cheap that it makes me want to go back to making my own bacon and sausage I'll just use what I already have on hand. If you use a beef roast or other meat grind it well and don't take out too much of the fat, you want to have at least enough left in the meat to help flavor it.

1 T of kosher salt... I've used table salt, canning salt, and sea salt but kosher salt just has a texture and extra something that makes it turn out just a smidge different.

1 1/2 T fennel seed.... You can lightly crush it, leave it whole or grind it. I grind about half of what I use and lightly crush the rest. It just helps to release the flavor. As a side note, you should always keep fennel seed on hand. Not only does it flavor this sausage but you can make a tea out of it that is the best thing EVER for gas or intestinal distress.

1 T paprika.... not every version of Italian sausage includes this but I like the flavor it gives.

1 T finely minced garlic... add more if you want to, less if you don't care for so much. I used the last of our homegrown garlic and used extra because I just like the kick.

2 tsp sugar.... for sweet or mild sausage, if you are making hot style then leave this out.

1 tsp black pepper.

1 tsp oregano

1 tsp basil

1 tsp crushed red pepper..... use more or less to your own taste. If you are making hot style then adjust it to the level of heat you want.

With clean hands squoooosh all of the ingredients together until the spices are mixed in evenly. You can use this sausage right away if you are really in a big hurry but it will be worth your time in a big way to let it sit for at least 4 hours in the fridge and ideally you will let it sit for 12 hours. This will freeze and keep as long as frozen meat of any other variety for you.... I say it like that because some folks loosely wrap their meat for the freezer in freezer paper which will obviously not last as well as vacuum sealed in plastic will.

Enjoy this in all of your favorite recipes instead of going out and spending a big chunk of your grocery budget on the store bought stuff. We'll be having some on Sunday in a wonderful potato soup!

just an update

2008-08-20T00:24:00.004-04:00

There isn't much of anything really going on here lately it seems, and I'm so glad! I think I needed a break and a little bit of quiet. Sometimes it seems like life just starts running me instead of me running my life... I know that won't make sense to some folks but if you've ever been there you know what I mean.

The kids and I have been trying to rescue our totally out of control garden but I don't know if there is much hope at all. We got busy over the last couple of months and our garden that was off to such a beautiful start has turned into the greatest weedpatch/ deer glen/ rabbit haven that you ever saw and is now useless for growing vegetables without being completely reworked! It's like a jungle out there and with my overwhelming fear of snakes I just hate to be out there at all now. I've been kind of struggling with whether to bother trying to save it or not but that's really a whole different story.

Troy and I have just been really praying and asking the Lord to show us very clearly HIS will about whether we should stay in this house or start getting ready to find a different place to live. There are some situations that have come up in the last several months that have made us all really feel like this may not be the best place for us now and they show no real sign of getting resolved in the near future if at all. I just hate moving! I hate the expense of it all and I hate leaving all the hard work that we've put into this place behind. But, at the end of it all this is just another temporary home. If we should happen to cross your mind please make mention of this decision to the Lord for us in prayer, we truly just want to be in the will of God for our lives above all else!

A friend of mine in Texas recently sent us a video to watch. For those of you already familiar with Kent Hovind, it's one of his but not the creation seminar videos we're all so familiar with. This one is "How to make money and spend it God's way". We all really enjoyed watching it and the kids have had lots of think over since we saw it. Most of all they are all seriously paying more attention to how they spend the money they get. Troy and I enjoyed it as well and found ourselves encouraged and challenged to continue to just do our best to honor the Lord with our labors and our spending.

Speaking of spending money, since I've begun all of this couponing and such I'm still really undecided about how well I like it. I spent so many years just kind of shopping for the same things all the time because I basically just kept certain items on hand all the time and knew which stores were the cheapest for me to shop were. I could almost do my grocery shopping in my sleep, but this couponing thing really requires alot of thought and planning and quick thinking. With my three magpie like kids shopping along behind me sometimes thinking is a little bit of a challenge.

I really did get some more great deals today though and every time I have a successful trip to the store and coupons save me any amount of money I feel more encouraged to keep trying. Today I spent just a little over $38 for a grocery cart full of food! The only things I didn't get were milk and potatoes because they are much less expensive somewhere else. The cashier was just in shock and the lady behind me in line was asking questions so fast I had no idea how to answer.... especially being so new to all of it myself. It's definitely interesting so for now I'll keep at it but the old pantry shopper in me is tired and misses the ease of just going to the store and knowing which items are items that I normally purchase, getting them and getting out of the store in nearly robotic fashion.

Well, it's nearly time for my sweet Hunk O Honey to get home and I want to make sure he has something ready to drink and snack on when he gets here so I'm off to tend to my fella. I hope y'all are having a wonderful day!

We're still here

2008-08-12T18:17:00.002-04:00

I know I haven't posted in awhile and I don't want anyone to worry over us so I wanted to drop by and say HELLOOOO. We have just been busy and trying to keep things going the way they should be around here. We did get to take a little trip to a meeting in South Carolina over the weekend and it was GREAT!!!

I'll never forget the message that was preached on "Shut the door", especially since it's been proven so much around here recently. There is no way that I can relate on here what the message was as preached but I can tell you that God's mercies and blessings are constantly being poured out on my life and my family. The kids and I recently started a prayer journal because as we study our way through Daniel we were talking about different ways to help "grow" your faith, and one of those ways was to remember what the Lord has done for you in the past. I challenged the kids then to write down their prayers every day and then go back and record the answers as they receive them. We have much to shout about around here.... every single day we write down answered prayers!!

Just one example.... Jared has taught himself to play the piano. It truly seems to us like he just sat down at the thing and started playing songs... and he plays them really well! In a matter of just a few weeks he went from making little 'tink tink' noises with two fingers to playing beautiful hymns and music. Well, we have a little electric keyboard that Fred has been using to learn with and I tinker with sometimes but Jared has a hard time with it because it just doesn't play like a piano and there are no pedals and so on. He mentioned something like that to his sunday school teacher about a week ago and the teacher just shrugged and said "ask the Lord to give you piano". Jared just laughed at him and said okay... not for one minute thinking that the Lord would give him a piano. So anyway.... Friday evening a lady who traveled to the meeting we were at heard Jared sitting there playing on the piano at the church we were visiting and tells me " I didn't know he could play!" so I told her how he had just taught himself to play and she gives us a piano... Just like that God answered a prayer!

I have so many more examples of answered prayer that I could list off for you but instead I'll just say... start a prayer journal and begin spending time asking the Lord to fill the needs in your life. But don't just ask "for" things, ask what you can give as well. I won't go into detail because I don't want to seem as though I'm sounding my own horn or anything like that, but I will say that if you are willing to be used... get ready to be blessed!

Y'all have a wonderful day!

Learning to use coupons

2008-08-01T19:38:00.002-04:00

It's almost like learning a new language!! I feel like I'm back in the 1st grade trying to figure out how to find my way around the school without knowing how to read very well. So far I haven't made any terrible couponing blunders but I know that I can learn to use them more efficiently to maximize my grocery dollars and it's frustrating.

So far one of my favorite helps is the coupon generators at A Full Cup. The Food Lion coupons have been a real blessing to us and the kids have so enjoyed the new "Home Economics" lessons that they each got their own MVP cards so they can catch deals when we go shopping too. Yesterday we got the store brand peanut butter for 79cents a jar!!!! We also got 3 cans of store brand tomato sauce for a nickel!!!!!!!!!! Then we picked up Hunt's spaghetti sauce for 50cents each, and store brand swiss slices for $1.50 a package and I declared Food Lion to be one of my favorite stores EVER.

Well, when my sweet Hunk O' Honey came home last night I just had to tell him all about the ways that I had been able to stretch our almost non existent grocery budget and he wanted to see for himself so today we went to Food Lion and he was able to get hamburger for $1.48 a pound, Hunt's spaghetti sauce for 50 cents a can, peanut butter for 79 cents a jar, and three cans of tomato sauce for a nickel! There are other great deals but right now this is all we can swing and we're thankful to be able to do that much!!

For the last three weeks we had NO, and I mean ZERO grocery money and that even meant going without prescription medications so being able to get peanut butter and spaghetti sauce is a big help. Remember that pay cut I told you about?? Well, on top of that pay cut we also now have insurance payments coming out of the paycheck and are making payments on some medical expenses that we ended up with before the insurance kicked in so we are functioning on almost half of what we had coming in before the job change. I'm not complaining, I'm just saying all of that to make the point that learning to stretch those dollars is important.

You never know when something might happen that makes every little penny suddenly seem like a dime so it pays (literally) to treat them carefully ALL the time and not just when the pressure is on. Maybe you will spend the little bit saved on something else, but at least then you're not kicking yourself for not having done all you could to save here and there along the way and make every dollar do all it could on it's way through your hands. Now my sweet Honey is working all the overtime he can but we won't see the pay for it until next month.... that's just the way the company does things, so until then (and even for quite awhile after) we are pinching every penny and calling it a serious learning experience. Which, by the way I am much more able to enjoy now that I have my medication!!!

So for all of you who are interested in saving your money or making it stretch as far as possible.... learn to use the coupons to your best advantage!!! The Food Lion deals can be awesome, but that isn't the only place to learn. If you live anywhere near a Kroger it's definitely in your best interest to get to know that store!! They will double coupons up to 50 cents (except internet coupons) which will sometimes equal Free products... but that can be true with all coupons if you learn to watch for sales. Harris Teeter doubles coupons up to 99 cents (again, except for internet coupons) and sometimes they have specials where they will triple them! Sometimes you can use coupons at any store on a smaller size product and get that item free too, like the malt-o-meal cereal at Wal-Mart.

So read, read, read, those blogs that teach folks to use coupons and rebates to their best advantage!!! Ask questions, print coupons, buy the newspaper for the inserts or ask your friends to keep theirs for you if they don't want them and shop. Some great places to start learning are at Crystal's money saving blog A Full Cup and Coupon World. Have fun!

Saving on fabric softener/dryer sheets

2008-07-22T10:13:00.003-04:00

I have gotten out of the habit of doing this but it's one of the best money saving ideas I've ever used. Since the boys have gotten so big now and seem to go through twice the laundry that they used to it's going to be even better now. I also love this idea because I can use my favorite fabric softener without worrying or feeling guilty about the cost, the last time we used this the small bottle I bought lasted two years.

Buy your absolute all time favorite fabric softener, don't even consider the cost because it's going to last a long long long long time! In a small container with a lid mix a solution of fabric softener and water 1 to 4 ... so if you use 1/2 cup fabric softener use 2 cups of water. Get a new sponge and cut into 1/4s make sure the pieces will fit into your container. When you need a dryer sheet just wring most of the solution out of the sponge and toss it in the dryer! It only takes just a minute to mix the solution and no more time to deal with the sponge that dryer sheets. This works fabulously without coating the dryer lint screen with that nasty residue.

Just a note on that nasty residue... most people do not even realize that they have this!!! The weird fabric that the dryer sheets are made of sort of dissolves in the heat of the dryer somehow and coats the screen on your dryer's lint trap. Over time this causes the dryer to not work properly and the element ends up burning itself out because it overheats. I don't know for sure but I think it probably cuts several YEARS off of the life of your dryer.

To see if your dryer has this problem take your lint screen and hold it under running water. If it holds water instead of allowing it to IMMEDIATELY pass through it then you have already begun the gumming up process. Take vinegar with a few drops of dish soap and your cleaning toothbrush and scrub as much of that gunk off as you can and let it dry before you put it back in the dryer. Your dryer will dry faster without that invisible film on the lint screen too!!!

We used to have to replace or repair our dryer every few years. Finally an appliance repair man told me when I called because the dryer wasn't drying properly to check the lint screen this way and sure enough the dryer we have now is well over 20 years old and we've had it for the last decade with no repairs necessary.

Saving on coffee creamer

2008-07-21T15:36:00.002-04:00

Along the lines of our newest efforts to even further expand our attempts at frugal living I think I'll start sharing the things we do around here that work for us. Our latest experiment is one that really worked well and saved bunches on the grocery bill.

My sweet Hunk O' Honey likes his coffee sweet and blonde (like me when we met LOL) so coffee creamer and lots of sugar are a necessity to his way of thinking. He especially loves the flavored liquid coffee creamers but as far as I am concerned for what those companies charge for them they should have some sort of nutrition to them at least and fewer (or NO) chemical additives. So in an effort to create a workable solution without fuss or extra expense I looked up several recipes online and then tinkered with them until we found one that we like. I'll share the basics and then you can think up your own ways to personalize the flavors you like.

Homemade Flavored Coffee Cream
1 can sweetened condensed milk
2-4 cups milk ( we use 3 cups of powdered milk reconsitituted)
flavorings of your choice

Mix all ingredients together in a container and refrigerate. For flavorings we have used cinnamon and vanilla, and on my test batch I used some cocoa powder that I made a syrup out of before blending into the rest of the stuff so it wouldn't clump up.

See how easy that was??!!! And unless you use flavored syrups such as the kind used to flavor coffees or something like that in yours there are no nasty chemical additives!! It doesn't give your coffee that artificial almost fluorescent light glow that you get from the store bought stuff but if you can live without that then this is the stuff for you to try! Enjoy the little things in life..... as long as they're cheap.

This is on my heart this morning

2008-07-16T09:42:00.002-04:00

I have to wonder sometimes about the way that some of us tend to behave when things just aren't going the way we think that they should. Y'all know what I'm talking about, the moments of frustration when something takes longer than we think it should, the bouts of worry and fear when finances look tighter than we think they should be, the fits of depression and anxiety that some of us moms have when the children aren't behaving the way we think they should, the tendency to throw a tool (or three) when a repair job takes twice as long as we think it should.

A friend of mine who I love and really admire in many ways has always astonished me with her ability to be calm and radiate this air of contentment all the time. This lady has shocked me so many times with her peaceful outlook and pacific way of just walking though life with her head up during hard times.... and I've seen her go through some really really hard times, things that would send most of us screaming to the brink of nervous breakdown territory. So it got to working on me and I decided that I would ask her how it is that she goes about this thing of living in a world that is spiraling ever more quickly into darkness and what she said has worked on me now for weeks so I thought I would share it here.

Chris says that she used to be an extremely stressed out "type A" person who was truly an extreme perfectionist. Every detail in her life had to be perfect, every thing that she did she felt must be done without flaw and it showed in whatever she put her hand to. Chris got married and soon enough learned that her son was on his way into this world. Like most of us ladies who are expecting Chris wanted to learn how to handle labor and delivery, what to do and not to do during her pregnancy and such, so she read book after book and began a regiment of healthy eating and exercise that was supposed to ensure the perfect pregnancy and delivery.

About the 16th week of the pregnancy Chris began to feel ill, horribly and severely ill all the time with no relief so she saw her doctor. The doctor pronounced her seriously in trouble with blood pressure high enough to jeopardize the baby's life as well as her own. Nearing the meltdown point Chris sobbed to the doctor that she didn't understand it, after all she had been doing everything perfectly! Only after praying more earnestly than she had in a very long time during those days in the hospital did she realize that her own expectations were more to blame than anything else for the threat to her baby's health.

Chris says that as she lay there day after day praying that the baby would be okay and that she would become healthy enough to be a good mom that the Lord would reveal to her more and more the pattern in her life of expecting things to go the way that she wanted and failing to even consider that truly in life we decide very little of how things go regardless of how much "stress" we put into a situation. She says that on the 10th day in the hospital she woke up that morning and in her prayer time she KNEW that she had to let go of ALL of HER expectations.

In that instant Chris says she began to really know peace and freedom that she never dared to envision in her wildest dreams. From that point on she says that the only expectation she had was that one way or another at some point her pregnancy would end and that the result would a baby. She gave up her expectations of how healthy the baby would be, or if the baby would even live. She gave up her expectations of how she would mother the child and how labor and delivery would go. She simply refused to anticipate any specific outcome other than that there would be a baby at the end of the pregnancy.

Chris went on to deliver a healthy, beautiful baby boy in a perfectly normal delivery after a perfectly normal labor after a perfectly normal remainder of her pregnancy. She says that it seemed as if the Lord allowed it all to happen simply so that she would learn this most valuable lesson before raising a child in her manufactured version of the perfect home and perfect environment with the perfect family and so on.

Well, after hearing this story it got me to thinking. How often do we all sabotage that peace that we could have so freely just by having such high and wonderful expectations of what we think should be, or not be. Could it be that having all of the expectations that we have in life simply breeds discontent, bitterness, frustration, fear, worry and stress? Maybe we just need to learn to let go of our own expectations and trade them in for totally relying on the Lord to provide the outcome.

As we go through the "labor" phase of this life maybe it's not our job to determine a list of expectations as to how things should go but simply to labor on and leave the results up to the Lord. We set ourselves up for needless stress time and again just by expecting things to turn out a certain way... what wasted energy! After all, if we are saved then the outcome is set in stone... or should I say carved in the hand of the Rock.

Tightening the belt

2008-07-15T18:49:00.002-04:00

You would think that after all the years that Troy and I have had to pinch pennies and cut every financial corner you can imagine we would be able to do it without thinking but here I am trying my best to learn about couponing, rebates and every other conceivable idea that might make those dollars stretch just a little farther. I'm not complaining at all, please don't take me wrong. I know without a doubt that the Lord will provide all that my family needs regardless of it's cost!

It is interesting though how much more I could have been saving our family in little ways and big ways over the years. I'm learning a lot and hope to learn much more even if it does seem more than a little bit overwhelming to get used to all the "super shopper lingo". I hate shopping with a passion so that makes the whole thing even more intimidating to me but I will learn to do it as quickly as possible anyway. I think maybe pre-planning those shopping trips will be more important than ever.

Anyway, I thought I would just hop on to update the poor neglected blog and post a couple of interesting links to help those who might be looking for ways to stretch the budget a bit. A Full Cup has great coupon links, rebate and freebie information and some coupon generators on their website. There's a lot to learn there so plan on doing some reading. Crystal also has loads of great information too, especially if you are trying to make heads or tails out of the deals that CVS and Walgreens offer, she is also a coupon wiz and lists tons of freebies on her site. One of my all time favorite websites even before our latest budget crunching efforts is Budget 101, there you can find all sorts of wonderful information, make it yourself recipes for all those crazy expensive things like coffee creamer and popsicles and taco mixes, plus forums to read more about saving money than your brain can digest in a month's time. Thrifty Fun remains another one of my long time favorites and is always one of the first places I go when I need a money saving idea or two.

So surf away all you economy weary people! There is lots of wonderful information still to be had for free and reading it sure does beat sitting around listening to the doom and gloom being pronounced by the news people these days. I'm so thankful that my security doesn't rest on the ups and downs of the economy!! No matter how many banks fail or stocks fall I know that in eternity's economy I so far beyond wealthy that I'll never be poor, lonely or out of hope.

Because He Loved Me

2008-06-28T00:04:00.000-04:00

Hallelujah!!!!!

A slightly bigger world

2008-06-04T23:27:00.003-04:00

I know I have been terribly absent..... again. I'm sorry to have left everyone hanging. Really we have been busy trying to get some of those never ending projects finished up around here.... and successfully this time!

Our new living room space is finished, the screened in garage that used to be there is cleaned out and all of those truck loads of STUFF(where does all of it come from?) have been hauled off, given away or donated. I hope to be able to post the before and after pictures sometime soon. The thought of everyone seeing how cluttered and unusable that space used to be makes me cringe though. Now our house just seems so much bigger! Troy keeps losing track of the kids and tends to go wandering around looking for them. He got used to being able to stand in the kitchen and either hear or see in direct view everyone in the family.... he'll adjust though and he likes our new "livingroom".

Our garden space has at least doubled if not just a bit more than that. The boys and I ran the tiller and pulled literal miles of roots and other stuff out of the ground and tilled it and tilled it and tilled it. Then I planted it in corn, beans, squash and pumpkins. It's all done now but the watering and waiting!!.... oops, and the endless weeding that goes with it all. With the garden being so much bigger it all takes a lot longer to do now. I'm just praying that the extra harvest will be enough to make me glad I worked so hard on making the extra space.

The kids have nearly finished school for this year including their end of the year research project that they displayed at our church homeschool groups end of the year gathering. All three of them did very well this year and we have big plans for next year and probably another little person will be joining us for school.

I finally began the massive task of going through all of the paperwork for the benefit programs with Troy's new job and am still wading through it but pleasantly surprised by what all is included without cost to us! There are some expenses with the health insurance but other than that I'm amazed at what a blessing this job has turned into for our family.

We are still waiting for our air conditioning to be fixed. I'm not a person who feels like I need to pamper myself with climate controlled environments on a regular basis but it's nearly a hundred degrees here and the next week or more will be more of the same. I'm HOT and I need to be able to get some rest which is hard to do when it's still hot in the middle of the night. Hopefully it will be tended to tomorrow!!

That's all for this quick post.... I have to go get some supper into my hungry kids. We went to church and didn't feel like eating because it was too hot but now we are all starving!

Some long days

2008-05-13T20:45:00.003-04:00

Sorry for the extended blog absence again! I don't intend to make you sweet folks back home get worried and make a long distance phone call to check on us... we just got busy again. With some warmer weather we've been putting in some long days trying to get things done around here, with success I'm greatly pleased to say!

I just now came in from the garden with the kids. We tilled and pulled up what seemed like miles of roots and junk to make room to plant more corn and some tomatoes and whatever else I get the urge to plant. My sweetie has put in a request for home made pickled peppers this year so I have to plant bunches of those. So far our garden looks really good. The potato plants are doing good but ants are trying to destroy them now and the battle is on! I don't have any tomatoes in the ground yet but they are in the greenhouse patiently waiting. The kids and I enjoyed standing back for a little while tonight before we came in to soak our blistered hands and seeing the progress we've made out there.... they made me promise to post pictures of the before and after soon.

We've also made lots of progress on our project of converting the screened in garage into a livingroom. All the junk has been hauled out of it and I'm painting the metal cabinets to make a room divider out of them since we can't put up a wall. We'll paint the walls next and I'm painting a futon frame a pretty copper color so we'll finally have comfortable seating for everyone. It feels kind of empty out there now after having those huge mountains of clutter for so long but now we go stand out there and imagine how nice it will be to have the space to work in and relax in... clutter free and ~~nicely~~ reasonably decorated. It's been a huge challenge for me to do this, especially since I happen to lack those wonderful girlie skills necessary to make things look "pretty". I'm learning though and have gladly accepted the challenge from my good friend Willie to do it without spending money. The only thing I've bought is a can of copper colored spray paint!! I'm stumped on what to do about curtains though.

Even with all the project work we've got going on we have been having some of the best times in our devotions every day!! The kids seem to have just gotten a fresh breath of interest, or somehow energized in our studies together and didn't even complain about revisiting our tabernacle studies. It's been wonderful to see the kids so full of zeal for the Lord lately, and to hear their prayers ring out in the morning and again at night. Jared has even been asking to give us a devotion from his studies several times and those are even better than I thought they would be! I am amazed sometimes at how the Lord speaks to the kids.... it's those times that I'm convinced life just can't get any sweeter than this.

Troy is doing good with his new job and seems to like it there. I'm glad, I would feel so awful if it turned out to be a job he really hated but only took so he could get the health insurance our family needs! They have asked him to put in at least 8 hours of overtime a week so he'll most likely be working 5 days a week to put in 48 or 56 hours depending on if they start working 12 hour shifts or not. I'm praying that the Lord will keep me healthy and full of the energy it takes to take good care of my sweet hunk O Honey when he's working that many hours, especially on the night shift like that.

Me and the kids aren't doing too bad with the night shift so far. It's rough on those days that we have to get up in the morning though, and I really really miss my prayer time in the garden early in the morning. There's just something about seeing the sun pop up over those trees as I offer up my first prayer of the day that jump starts my day like nothing else does.

Well, now that I've sat down for a bit and caught my breath from running the tiller and all that heavy work outside I have to get off of this computer and get to work on the inside chores. I hope everyone is having a great week and living a richly blessed life in the Lord!

Teaching them

2008-04-25T01:19:00.004-04:00

This is that time of year for our homeschool to be sort of straddling the school year that is almost over and the one that is just about to begin. We are wrapping up some of the things that we have been working on for the past year but also beginning some new things for the year coming up. We school year round now and have found that it just gives us more freedom to study some things more in depth and take the time to enjoy what we are learning. (Yes, I said "we".... I really enjoy learning right along with the kids and am shocked at all that I never did even hear about during the time I was in school myself.)This is the time of year for me to be very critical of what I've been doing and really take the time to evaluate what I'm doing with the kids and why I do it, and to take the time to really seek the Lord about what to continue and what to leave behind.

At a home school meeting recently one of the ladies gave a devotion on "maintenance" which really struck a cord with me. I seem to have completely forgotten to maintain some of the most basic foundational principles that caused me to want to teach them at home to begin with. I have found myself deep in prayer so many times since that afternoon just really crying out to the Lord with all my heart asking Him to show me where to begin in getting right what I had let deteriorate in our home, in our schooling, and in my relationships with my kids. I have also found myself wandering down memory lane with my Savior since then and, finally reading a very old journal from those first months (the first two years actually) after I got saved. What a blessing!

Right after I got saved Troy was working nights and it became my habit to just sit for as long as I could and read my bible with a notebook in my lap. I would make notes as I read, jot down questions, write down things that I wanted to focus on in my prayers and all sorts of things like that. It was such a sweet time for me and I would often just sit and read and pray and worship the Lord all by myself in the middle of the night while Troy worked and the babies slept. At the time I had no idea that the Lord was teaching me and helping me to grow or giving me the strength to withstand some of the trials that we would soon begin to face. I just knew that God's word revealed things to me that made perfect sense after living for 24 years and finding that nothing else in this world ever made perfect sense.

Jessi was 11 and full of spunk, and Josh was a kindergardner and so curious about everything all the time and immediately after being saved I was overwhelmed with a very deep desire to do better by them.Our sweet little Fred was just a toddler then, and Jared was only a couple of months past being just a little pink line on that plastic test strip so naturally one of the first things I wanted to know was how to be the mother that I should be. As I read back over those notes and prayers and thoughts I had written down I was so heartbroken to see how much I had been shown by the Lord in those times and how far I had come in serving Him in my home and family and how richly He had poured out blessings on us, yet I had failed to maintain those things in my life, and the end result of that had been the struggles that my children have had to face over the years.

To have found that journal now as I was again seeking the Lord's help in teaching my children and getting my house in proper order was such a sweet blessing to me that it literally brought tears to my eyes. But then to re-read all of those passages of scripture and to see them as though I've never seen them before and to feel that thrill in my spirit as the Lord again gently prompts me to re-build those things that have failed due to lack of maintenance was even sweeter. I had written in the section of the notebook that I had labeled "kids" so many wonderful plans and questions and different verses of scripture all of which have served so well to encourage me and convict me all over again.

It has been extra sweet to see that the passages of scripture that I was reading then are the same ones that I've been reading now, only now the Lord has shown me things that before I had just not seen there! It almost seems like those verses just instantly became deeper and even more special as they guided my heart all over again to strive for diligence in teaching my children the ways that the Lord would have us to go in, and that "By little and little" all of the things I am feeling so far behind on and so overwhelmed by will be taken care of and caught up on and conquered.

I can honestly say that I've actually enjoyed being thoroughly reminded by the Lord just how much He does love me and what exactly it is that He expects of me in teaching and training my children. I'll never forget the first time I read Deuteronomy chapter 6! I was so taken with the simplicity of the instruction in that chapter and with the fact that the Lord was so loving and kind to give such clear instructions to us that I asked Troy to engrave the entire chapter on plaques to hang on either side of our front door. Bless my sweet Hunk O Honey's heart, he considered it and I think he may even have tried to figure out how to do it and make it work for our tiny little home but in the end he bought me a really nice framed print of a different passage of scripture that he liked and hung it on the door for me.

Reading through that particular chapter this time was different though, especially when taken in with the chapter before it and the one right after. It just seemed to jump right off the page and bless my little heart in ways that I have not been able to speak about coherently all week long! The same goes for Exodus chapters 23 and 24. I am so thankful that when I turn to God's word with a heart to be obedient and teachable I never fail to find the blessing I need, even when I don't really even know what it is I'm looking for! Ain't God Good!! I really wish that I could put it all into words but right now I think my heart and mind are just busy digesting all that I've been fed this week. Maybe soon I'll be able to make sense of it all for you but right now I'm savoring every morsel myself.

I will tell you this much.... I have never been so thoroughly convicted before that now more than ever it is imperative that our kids know and understand why we live the way we do and why we make the choices we make and why we shun those things we shun. I have never been so thoroughly convicted that now more than ever it is imperative that we live an even more separated lifestyle and that the kids know why that is and are given all the ammo that they will need to make right choices for themselves as well, even if their daddy and I were totally unavailable to help them. I believe that I have been terribly irresponsible in not having trained and taught the kids more consistently all along but my Savior is faithful and forgiving and has reassured me that He will help lead them to understanding as we study His word together.

It's my plan and purpose and promise to teach them to cling to the cross, nothing less will do!

Catching up

2008-04-18T14:50:00.002-04:00

Sorry to have been absent so long (again). We had a missions conference this week and that combined with spring duties at home have kept me more than busy! Lord willing things will slow down a little bit and get back to some kind of normal.... whatever that means.

Troy will be starting his new job next week. That may work out in a strange sort of way to give me just a little bit more time to do things like blog and sew and cook. For some reason I am just more productive at certain things in the late evening than I am during daylight hours. He's excited about the new job and the opportunities it holds, I am just praying that he likes it and feels like it's a "good fit" for him. Part of me feels just awful that he's given up a job that he really likes because we needed health insurance!

The kids and I have lots and lots and lots of plans. We are still working on transforming our screened in garage into a family room so that we can turn our current family room into a dining room/office. We are planning our goat barn and goat lot too and need to be getting busy building that. Most of the garden is already planted but now we are out of room and will have to keep our little Fred busy cutting and turning tires to grow the things that we haven't planted yet like melons and tomatoes and peppers. The kids are wanting to get more chickens to replace the ones the neighbors dogs killed so we have to expand their house and yard too. We have baby bunnies on the way and have to get the big barn cleared out to move all the bunnies into because the chickens and guineas make the bunnies go crazy and hurt the babies. Plus, there is always bee work to do this time of year. So far we have not had the greatest time working with the bees but hopefully that is straightened out.

I have so many things I want to blog about and as usual not enough time to do it right now. I need to get going and start supper for tonight and get the house presentable and shower. Troy is bringing home a friend from work and I wouldn't want him to get a bad first impression of my sweet Hunk O Honey's family and home.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Life goes on

2008-04-08T16:16:00.002-04:00

I left my little rant up a few extra days just because of the behind the scenes emails I was receiving. For the record, I don't care what anyone else thinks of what I think. Anyway, now that I've gotten that out of my system for now... on to the next thing.

The goal that I had set for myself of getting stuff cleared out around home and getting caught up with some projects I've been behind on is seriously in jeopardy of not being met. I decided that for my own peace of mind I will accept the following compromise with myself. I will get the things that are the most necessary taken care of to the best of my ability without working myself into a tail spin and tackle the rest of it as time allows on our new schedule. I will also not allow myself to be angry or frustrated with myself since I was faithful to continue to work on the projects except during times of illness or other duties taking priority. I will be prepared to attend our missions conference meetings with a heart that is fully prepared to hear what the Lord may be saying to me and with a heart to be obedient. I still have one week left to get some fairly major projects taken care of so please if you happen to think of it pray that I'll get it done!

Troy is supposed to be starting work at the new job either next Tuesday or as soon as possible afterward. He may need to stay where he is for a week or so extra in fairness to himself and his current employer who has been very kind during all the ~~ruckus~~ interviewing and testing for the new job. His schedule will be very very different than what we've been used to for the last 3 years now but very similar to what we used to live by so I'm hoping and praying that the transition will go smoothly for the family. I'm sort of excited about the prospect of the late night shift again, I always seem to get those tasks done inside the house that so often go neglected when the sun is shining or the library is open or the garden is calling my name.... so maybe, just maybe I'll finally get this house in some sort of functional order!

Well, I'm off of this computer for now to get busy with chores. You may have noticed a few changes on the side bar... be assured that there are many many more to come, I'm in the mood to rearrange!

Those poor kids

2008-04-03T09:31:00.002-04:00

That's what I think most anymore. If you are tender natured and over-react to a bit of venting go read a different blog now, because I'm speaking my piece here and now and that's that.

Every time we go somewhere and I see those steely eyed, half dressed, emotionally monotone young people the world is churning out in record speeds I want to cry. My heart breaks for every single one of them.... but then I get mad. I want to slap the mothers of most of the barely dressed but not sure why she's pregnant "teens" that I see, and I want to hunt their "daddy" down and do I don't know what. I want to know why they have so readily jumped on the "fashion" train that markets our baby girls the way hookers market themselves on street corners. I want to know why parents won't parent their children. Before kids can read now they are trained by the world to look "hot" and to do whatever sick thing it takes to attract as much attention as possible regardless of the type of attention they are attracting. The world has prostitot clothing sections in every store we go into but then is astonished that kids are becoming promiscuous at earlier ages all the time. The pop princess/ teen idol craze that is destroying young folks is fuel to the fire that today's kids walk through and leaves kids so jaded and laid bare that there just isn't any room left in them for innocence.

Add to all of that confusion the violence that is pounded into all of us from day to day. It's in our speech as we turn phrase after phrase in front of our little people who are mostly left on their own to sort out what is real and what is just words spoken idly. It's in every tv show, cartoon and movie and made to seem as though violence is just something we have around us that has no importance or meaning. Violence pervades much of the world's music now as well and a trip to anyplace with video games should tell you that it's now it's own industry. All too often in so many parts of our country violence is a very real every day part of life that even our children just can't avoid. Is it any wonder that yesterday 9 third graders who should only have been worried about things like spelling were busy plotting murder? These kids had laid out what in their minds was a perfect murder and had smuggled the necessary items into school to accomplish the act. I sat in my livingroom last night crying for the innocence that should have been theirs, crying for the loss of adult guidance and instruction that those children obviously lack, crying for little hearts that are so hardened that they plotted murder and did their best to carry out their plan.

Human life has no value to most people anymore, other than their own. People buy and sell children every day right here where we call home. Women force their bodies into medication induced states of infertility only to change their minds years later and take a different set of drugs for the opposite effect as if babies are things we can or should just conjure up on a whim. Said "lady" finally gets her way and is pregnant and spends nine months stressed to pieces over whether or not to work until labor hits in order to save up her maternity leave, ends up on bedrest and has no choice but to go back to work when baby is the ripe old age of 3 weeks and needs mommy most. Guess where the little cutie pie that was wanted so badly that mommy filled her body up with chemical confusion ends up..... daycare. Maybe the children have a valid rebellion going on? Maybe they are trying in their own messed up way to tell the world that they don't like being institutionalized from birth and that they truly do need to be parented with love and warmth and consistency. Maybe these kids need to be parented by people who are genuine.... or are there any of those left?

While I'm ranting.... there is apparently a woman somewhere in our country who went through some sort of partial sex change operation and is now carrying a baby who will be born to her/him and their lawfully wedded wife. Yet another example of the total chaotic confusion that we are forcing children to sort through. That particular sect of society would have people to believe that gender is not important and has no value, or that it is something to be chosen at random or changed on a "feeling".... what kind of junk is that? How about just playing the hand you are dealt and realizing that sometimes what you want or think is just not the most important thing, how about just understanding that maybe you are being selfish and childish and hey, let's DON'T drag a child into a mess like that! I've heard every argument in the book in support of the "gay" lifestyle and "gay" couples parenting and I just don't buy it. There is no way that two people who flatly live in full out rebellion against the laws of God and His natural order should parent children!

I've heard woman after woman claim to be a "stay at home mom" but many of them are really not focused on the job of mothering their children. Some of those women prefer to toss those kids into the nearest public school system and have their days free to decorate their homes or themselves or to go shopping or lunching or golfing or whatever. I want to know when parents are going to get interested in the job of parenting their children, that job that they will all someday stand before the Lord and answer for but the majority of parents in this country feel fine abdicating to random strangers and electronic devices. Is it any wonder that children don't feel valued enough to value themselves above gutter trash?

I want to understand, but the truth is that I already do understand and I hate it. I hate it that parents don't love their children anymore, or want to try to shelter them from things that are for adults only and from things that are so vile and awful that NO ONE of any age should have to face them. I hate it that things that are abominations to a Holy God are so celebrated and lauded here. I hate it that kids are so indoctrinated with violence and lust and ugliness that they often end up looking like prettily painted zombies before they are old enough to drive, chock full of the latest greatest anti-depression and ADHD medications the pharmaceutical companies can crank out. I hate it that all that potential is wasted and trashed out before it ever got started.

One of the ladies in our church last night was talking about how the devil wishes to devour us, and thinking on the mess going on in our youth today you can see it. With your own two eyes you can see the devouring of our youth from the inside out..... take a look, I dare you! See that sweet face that used to shine so brightly with curiosity and interest in the world around them gradually become duller until all that looks back at you is the vacant stare of someone who truly is only killing time. Look, and you'll see that handsome teenage boy who used to want to learn and had great plans for his life as he gradually becomes less and less interested in anything of real importance, as he tunes out of the classes that used to hold his interest and into the popular culture that demands he become more like them. I'm tired of watching them be eaten away by the world and all of it's filth. I think of the Brittany Spears' and Lindsey Lohans who both used to be such bright and talented young girls, they were pretty and sharp and had such great hopes for their lives. They started out in "wholesome" family entertainment but were lured into all that is dark and trashy and now both of those women are what every mother hopes her children never become.

They are all falling, far, hard and fast.... I pray that the Lord will spread His hand and help us get the gospel to them quickly!

On the run

2008-03-25T07:00:00.002-04:00

I have to make this a super quick post because the kids and I are on our way out the door. We are going to visit a beekeeper friend to make hive parts for our splits. Hopefully this will not only save us some money but my boys and Fred will learn how to make most of the components of the hives. It looks like the weather here will be great for making splits most of the rest of this week so we are definitely trying to hurry.

We also have 3 new additions to the family. For Caleb's birthday Saturday each of the kids got a goat kid. They are adorable cute, I'll try to post pictures soon. They are a nubian boer cross which should give us a good milk supply after they are grown and the kids that they have will be good for meat as well. My kids have spent days now dreaming of all the milk based goodies that they hope to have when we are no longer paying such a high price for milk.

Troy formally accepted the job offer yesterday. The pay is still a bit less than what he is making right now but the benefits are really good. After 3 years with no health insurance or sick days or paid holidays or vacation time or any other benefit of any kind he's excited to say the least. He is dreading leaving the job he has now though, he really enjoys the work he's doing and has met some people there that he really likes.... my poor hunk o' Honey, it's so sweet of him to give up that job to do better for us!

Well, I still have to load the truck and help the kids (human) finish the morning chores. Have a wonderful day.

Half a dozen times now

2008-03-18T16:39:00.002-04:00

I have set down at my desk at least that many times now to try and get this blog updated. Being so far behind on everything has caused me to have the problem lately of not being able to stay in one spot long enough to finish much of anything, or to focus well on whatever it is that I'm trying to work on.

Actually other than being swamped with spring things are going well. I've finally adjusted about as well as I think I will ever be to the medication that is supposed to help with my heart and the fainting spells and the headaches and the dizziness. I still thoroughly resent needing it but I don't suppose there is a medication for that ;-P

Troy will most likely be starting a new job soon Lord willing. He is in the bargaining process with the human resources department trying to get the pay rate up to as close as possible to what he is currently making to ease the transition time that just goes with starting a new job. If he takes it we will finally have health insurance and some other benefits that we've been without for a really long time now.

The kids and I have been trying to get our garden and yard done so we can get busy planting bee food. I have a teensy tiny little baby strawberry out there that I am coddling for all I'm worth! I planted over 100 strawberry plants last year......BUT between the late freeze that we had, then the drought, then the wild bunnies who feasted all summer long in my garden and the hungry deer and chickens in the fall and winter months I have maybe a dozen strawberry plants left. In a last ditch effort to save them I dug them all up and transplanted them into Fred's handy-dandy-homemade-from-recycled-tire planters that I haven't had time to paint yet so they kind of make my yard look very very redneck/hillbilly/trashy.

Troy and the boys and Fred have to get busy and start building the bee boxes and bottom boards and inner/outer covers because if we don't make splits soon I'm afraid our bees will swarm and then we will have lost the extra hives and all that they would produce. Why not just buy them you ask?? Well, because they cost nearly $100 each and we just don't have the extra to spend. The kids love their bees though and I love the honey they make and the increase in the garden produce and the better berry and grape crops so our little Fred's hobby turned family business not making profit yet stays for now. It really is too bad that we didn't get a jump start on the bees this year because if we had a surplus of them to sell the kids would be making some very very good profits!

That's all the time I have to sit here, I have to run off again. I hope everyone is doing well. As you can see we still have plenty to keep us busy and God has blessed us. Hopefully soon I'll be able to post some pictures so my sweet friends back home will stop harassing me about it!

It's spring!

2008-03-04T10:22:00.002-05:00

Finally.... sometimes to me it just seems like the warm weather and pretty days and trees budding and blooming takes forever to get going and I'm trapped in that blah, gray, off world where absolutely everything seems to be at least a half step off from where it should be. I really struggled with whether to post or not and what to post because I've been in such an "off" place within myself lately and I don't like to talk about it..... but I've gotten too many phone calls from friends and family full of questions so I'll go ahead and talk about it.....and talk about other more cheery things too.

Yes, I'm back on the heart medication (Aunt Janice), and so far no it doesn't seem to be helping me but it can take months to find the right dosage and/or medication. I'm trying very very hard to be patient and keep a decent outlook on it all but y'all that know me best know that patience is one of those things I really struggle with, especially when it comes to being patient with myself. I have missed alot of church services lately because of the headaches and the dizziness and the fainting spells and the chest pain and I could very easily get very depressed about all of it. To be honest I have been on the cusp of falling into that but God has been so good to me that I don't dare let myself do it! Yes Aunt Mary, I'm gaining weight from the medication but I promise not to stop taking it just because of that. And yes Miss Willie Troy has been there to catch me and so have the kids but I'm frustrated with having to lean on them so much lately and no, I'm not willing to consider a pace maker or any other invasive sort of treatments at this point. Please lets all remember that for nearly 3 years I was doing good without medications and special restrictions and that I don't think it's impossible for me to get back to that point. While having to take the medications and go through all the doctor's visit stuff again really doesn't excite me at all I'm thankful that at least now we know what to expect (sort of) and we know how to handle a lot of the symptoms. I could talk more but I'm taking the gump pledge "that's all I have to say about that".

Spring is here and I'm getting excited about all that I want to do this year outside.... overwhelmed already with how far behind I am but excited all the same. We are working on the strawberry beds and herb beds outside now. Fred has been cutting and turning tires faster than any of us would be able to ..... she has her own funny method of doing it that looks kind of like a yorkshire terrier wrestling to turn a shoe inside out. We are watching all of the mistinted paint at the stores for terra cotta colors and reds and greens too, Fred has her own ideas for decorating our tire "pots". She is hoping to have enough extra to sell a few of them too. We have our two large potato beds planted, and the garlic looks good so far and we put in some onions and peas yesterday... yes I know I am late but I've been kind of busy falling down and had to give myself permission to be a little late this year.

We checked on the bees yesterday for the first time this year too.... well, the kids did. Fred's hive is just a bit on the weak side but her bees look really good and still have purple honey stored from last year! Caleb's hive is going to have to be split very very soon or we'll have a swarm to deal with. Jared's hive is doing great too. Our two big red maple trees and in bloom and I love to go sit down under the tree and watch the bees work the blooms. It smells like syrup and the bees sing along with whatever tune I hum..... it's one of my favorite places to be right now. We are hoping to avoid the late freezes that kill off the blooms and get out of this drought this year so we have a good honey harvest.

Fred and I are trying to get our soaps and lotions and balms and such stocked up for sale again. We have so many new recipes to make up and share with everyone and the excitement just keeps on building as we learn more about our craft. Right now we are struggling with how to keep our prices to a level we feel comfortable with. Our supplies have gone up in cost as has everything else and we don't want to charge excessively for our products. Fred is so excited that we finally learned how to make creamy lotions instead of just the lotion bars..... me too since that is my personal favorite. Hopefully soon I'll get a camera and be able to share some pictures.

I just realized that I smell burning banana bread..... I guess I am done blogging for right now. Y'all have a good week and I hope to post again soon.

Thinking about spring

2008-02-25T10:14:00.002-05:00

I can't wait for the weather to be at that just right temperature to get out in the garden and plant things and watch them grow! It's that time of year now when I start going a little bit crazy because I just don't have enough garden space for all the stuff I want to grow. I hope the drought eases off now so I can have a better garden this year.

I'm also thinking bees! We are looking forward to splitting hives so that we'll have 6 instead of 3, and we're hoping to catch a few swarms this year too. The purple honey was so awesome that we hope we get alot more of that this year. The big red maple trees are blooming now so there is plenty of food for the bees and we don't have to worry much about them starving.... unless the weather turns off really bad cold again.

I really have a lot to do to get ready for all of this gardening and beekeeping work..... why am I still sitting here?? I have to clean out the freezers to make room for the produce and for freezing drone comb and jars of honey. I have to go clean out the hoop house and build the shelves to start my seedlings...that should have been done months ago. I really really have to get the barns cleaned out so we can move the rabbits and make room for goats. I wonder if there is any way to harvest kudzu for animal feed and if it is nutritionally sound to feed animals primarily on what grows wild in the area??

I have too much to do to sit here daydreaming about spring..... but it's fun while it lasts.

I'm still here

2008-02-22T08:05:00.002-05:00

Just saying hello and feeling kind of rambly today. Any sudden weather change seems to set off a migraine for me so I'm sort of foggy in the head today and feeling very "unplugged" and short on steam. The flu bug that bit Jared also went through Caleb and left me exhausted from dealing with both boys running high fevers but it is over now and the boys are back to their bouncy selves.

On the job front..... Troy went and did the interview and all of the testing that the company requires and they are now in the background check (a very very thorough one!!)He also was asked to send in lots of very detailed paperwork and copies of his diplomas and transcripts from high school and college so all of that is done now too. I do know that if Troy goes to work for this company he will not be working day shift during the weekdays only like he does now. It will either be 4 ten hour evening shifts during the week or Friday, Saturday, and Sunday day shift and I'm not fond of either one of those scenarios! I guess life is always a trade of some sort though and I don't dare even think of complaining about a thing that isn't a fact in our lives (yet).

I'm sitting here thinking while I type this about how much I have to get done today. I spent all day yesterday tearing half of my house apart and moving things around and cleaning. Am I the only person who can live somewhere for just two years and feel like the stuff I own is taking over? By noon yesterday I was ready to move everything we have out into the yard and only allow each family member to bring 1/3 of their belongings back in the house. As for the other two thirds..... doesn't a nice bonfire sound great?! Seriously, we have accumulated more stuff than we know what to do with. A couple of the folks in our little family (who shall remain nameless today) are serious packrats! They simply refuse to ever throw anything away, and when someone else throws something away they take it upon themselves to "rescue" that item from the dump before it gets there!

Please don't get me wrong, I'm 100% for frugal living and doing all I can to stretch every dollar we have as far as it will go. I just fail to see how saving every single button and every single piece of string or having 14 rubber tipped dojamawhoies saves anybody anything! In fact in my efforts to sort and store and organize and clean all of those buttons and strings and zippers and dojamawhoies I am very likely to have a nervous breakdown which will only run up our medical expenses so how in the world is it helpful??

All joking aside though, I really do detest hoarding and I guess that's what all of this accumulation of STUFF is to me. To me having to collect endless amounts of this and that screams out to me that those persons doing the collecting have a serious problem with their faith, they just don't trust that the Lord will provide them with all the dojamawhoies they need WHEN they need them and rather than build their faith they busy themselves with dojamawhoie collecting. Not to mention the maddening processes of dojamawhoie sorting, organizing and storing!!

Well, enough from me today! I have to go get busy putting away all the dojamawhoies that are left out from yesterdays cleaning binge! Have a wonderful weekend all!

Remember when...

2008-02-14T11:23:00.003-05:00

I was talking about how unusually quiet things seemed around here and how that usually heralds a bunch of sudden changes in our lives?? Wellllll, I am buckling up and holding on and praying hard!

My sweet Hunk O Honey just got a new job a few weeks ago and it was truly an answer to long months of prayer for him. Yesterday he called from work to tell me that he was finally on the overtime schedule (another answered prayer) and would be home a little late. I hung up the phone and went back to tending my sick young 'un (the preacher boy is sick, going to the dr. today!) when the phone rang again. It was the human resources officer for another company that the Hunk O Honey had applied with during his job search offering him the opportunity to test for a position within their company. I took down the fella's information and kind of chuckled to myself thinking that the job search was over with and settled.

When my Honey got home and I told him about the phone call his eyebrows went up and he grabbed the phone!! I (in an effort to be helpful and not bossy or pushy or nosey) quietly went about getting his supper ready so he could eat and run to church as soon as the phone call was over with.... I mean, it really only takes a minute to tell someone that you have a job now and thanks for calling but your too late bye, right? 15 minutes later I still hear him talking on the phone so I go to see if someone may have beeped in on the line and hear him making an appointment to take the welding test! So needless to say when he finally got off the phone I was curious as all get out to find out what's going on.

The reader's digest version goes kind of like this: The new job is great, he loves it, they love him and things are going extremely well. The benefits aren't wonderful but few companies offer wonderful benefits these days at all but he loves the job and it makes him happy and he even likes the guys he works with and has come home every day humming a happy tune. BUT....... he found out yesterday that the company is considering a move to Texas!!!!! He was mulling over in his mind and prayers what to do should he be given the option to move with the company IF it makes the change but since he only found out yesterday at lunch was still in the 'thinking it over' stage. The company who called him yesterday is a HUGE company with plants all over the world and a benefits package that takes nearly 3 pages of print to describe! So here we are feeling very back to square one and very very very ready for the Lord to make clear HIS perfect will for this family in this situation.

It gets a little bit complicated for us because we truly love where we are right now. We love our church family and the life that we've built for ourselves here. We have no doubts at all that this is where the Lord has put us for a reason...... but neither one of us has ever had peace that this was a "for good" home for us either. That was the only reason we hadn't gone looking for a home to buy here and we haven't invested ourselves in anything here other than our church. It appears that the company Troy is working for right now will most likely eventually be moving.... and who can blame them, the taxes here are ridiculous, the highway system is bizarre and complicated, and the land prices are even more over the top than the taxes. But the other company that wants Troy to test for them has just as much potential of eventually shipping us to somewhere else though it would probably be later rather than sooner and the benefits are better in the long term. {sigh} lots more prayers to be said I suppose.

Also on our prayer list is the preacher boy. Jared started running a fever yesterday of 102 and 103 all day long, along with a bone racking cough and lots and lots and lots of brightly colored snot. He was very upset that he had to miss church last night so he and I stayed home and studied together and prayed together but it's just not the same. He's going to the doctor this afternoon. It's most likely bronchitis and if it was me or Troy we would probably try to ride it out with natural things we always do but Jared never... and I mean never gets seriously sick. This will be the first time he has seen a doctor (except for one head injury from falling down with a tree) since he was 5 years old. His lungs sound horrible or I would be more likely to just keep tending to him at home, but my policy is anything that moves so fast and raises a temp that won't come down for more than two hours goes to the doctor.

We're also keeping my brothers in prayer. There have been some situations come up with the truck driving business that have caused alot of major changes for them. Being self employed can sometimes be a real challenge when you have a family counting on you to provide so we are praying that the Lord will just work it all out to the good of both of them and that the needs of the families will be met completely.

Also on our hearts lately are several other long term situations with our extended families that have been left sort of unresolved. I won't go into details here but I will ask that if you think of us please pray that we would both be extra sensitive to the leading of the Lord in our family matters. Some of these situations have been very serious and have caused tremendous amounts of pain for many people in the past. There are lots of wounds here that all run deep and we don't want to say or do anything that could make matters worse or hurt anyone any further. Troy and I just can't help but feel that there are reasons that the Lord has continued to lay certain people on our hearts and has given us such burdens for them.... so we want to be absolutely sure that we do the right thing in the eyes of the Lord.

And, again this year we are seeking God's will about our vehicle situation. We have been blessed with the ever faithful Jeep that brought us out here nearly 3 years ago with almost 300,000 miles on it. It still runs and only needs about $200 worth of repairs to hopefully stay on the road for at least another year. It's Troy's work truck and is getting a little extra worn but is still reliable and good daily transportation for him.

We do need to do something much more drastic for a good family vehicle though. A couple of years ago we were given a Suburban that needed some work and it's truly been a blessing to us. We never did get the work done that it needed though because it's pretty intense stuff that just requires more time than what we have available, and now it needs not only that (heater core) but most likely a transmission rebuild and some serious engine work as well. We are simply asking the Lord to help us discern His will about what we should do, if we should really invest the huge sum of money it would take to fix the Suburban or if we should just try to find the best deal we can with what little we can afford to spend and that He would guide us in that decision.

The whole car situation makes us both a little bit sad. This time last year the Lord had impressed it on both of our hearts to do a very specific thing about our vehicle situation but it was something that scared us both to pieces and instead of just walking in faith and being obedient to what the Lord had so clearly told us to do we dragged our feet and ended up missing out altogether. So every time we went somewhere this past winter with no heat it brought to mind just what our disobedience cost. Hopefully we both learned our lessons and will listen carefully to the guidance from the Lord and act immediately on what we are told instead of doubting and procrastinating!

Speaking of procrastinating..... I have a long list of projects that need to be started today so I can meet my goals of getting this house in order and getting things caught up. I hope everyone has a wonderful day!!!

It's about time!

2008-02-12T10:29:00.000-05:00

Finally, I am almost done with all the dental errands with the kids. Fred had her last filling done yesterday afternoon and swears to me that she is going to be super diligent in caring for her teeth from now on..... the boys I'm sure will still need to be ~~threatened heartily~~ reminded daily. With a very brief respite from all the running to and fro in order to provide the kids with healthy teeth the next thing on the list is to get them all to the orthodontist. I'm already cringing at the thought of paying for it but Caleb especially needs to be seen. Fred and Jared's glasses will be finished in a couple more weeks and then they will both be able to see clearly and can no longer use eye strain as an excuse to put away their school work early.

In between all of the errands I'm still trying to get my house cleared of clutter and in some sort of organized state before mid March gets here. I know that if it isn't done by then and the kids aren't completely caught up with their schoolwork by then I will be in total meltdown mode by the end of March. March is the month when we get extra busy with the bees and the garden and the missions conference at church and extra meetings in other churches and Resurrection Sunday also comes in March this year. I still have a long long way to go to be anywhere near finished with that so please if you have a minute pray for me that I will get caught up with all of it so that I can go into our Missions Conference at church this year with an uncluttered mind and heart and be able to fully focus on what the Lord would have me to do for missions this year!

Troy started his new job a few weeks back. He loves it!!!! I could not be happier for him either, his old job was just making him sick with worry all the time. This place seems to be a much better fit for him and he's excited with the new work and the company. I talk with my friend Willie often about how sad it is that companies don't hire employees for the long term anymore. It used to be that a good loyal employee was considered a long term investment by most companies and they were treated as such, but that is the polar opposite of the situation today it seems and it gets harder and harder to find a decent job all the time.

Fred is on track to finish her first year of high school this May. I'm so proud of how hard she studies and her eagerness to learn, but it's sad sort of to see my last baby girl grow up. She has such an intense interest in so many things and is always ready to study any subject into exhaustion.... I hope she never loses that love of learning new things.

Jared is growing like a weed and sometimes I it seems as if he is just shooting up more by the minute! That boy is so sweet sometimes .... it's almost like seeing a sweet, cute little 3 year old in a body the size of a full grown man. A lot of the time he is really annoying (without meaning to be of course, he is after all a 13 year old boy)... but there are the times when his sweet streak takes over. Our family has the first two seasons of the old tv show "The Waltons" on DVD and we all enjoy them. We also babysit for some friends on Friday evenings and their kids have also enjoyed watching that show with us. Well, Jared had saved up enough money to buy the next season for us and he did that yesterday as a gift to the family. I know that there are lots of things he would have loved to have bought himself but he chose to spend the money on something that we would all enjoy together and with a huge grin on his face said he couldn't wait to watch them with our friend's kids.

Now before everyone gets the wrong impression of our family's relationship with the tv let me say this. Friday nights are our family's night to unwind and relax. We keep a crazy hectic pace 6 days a week with barely even taking time to just stop and gather our thoughts. I'm not complaining, it's pretty much always been this way for us and we're used to it. So when the kids were really small me and their daddy started "junk night".... on Friday evenings when nothing else pressing is going on we all just sit around and stuff ourselves with goodies and watch something as wholesome as we can find together on the tv and visit and chat and catch up with each other and sometimes play games. When the kids were really tiny we watched cartoons or something like the Waltons or Little House on the Prairie. As they got older they got to choose some of the shows and for a seemingly long while the boys always chose westerns or something totally goofy and me and Fred always wanted to watch action movies. Now we have just kind of relaxed back into something that is sweet and simple and we like it that way. It is a once a week indulgence into laziness and peacefulness and unless there is a church activity that we need to be at or we have a job scheduled that has a very pressing deadline we try to let nothing interrupt our Friday evenings.

My youngest child is getting tall now too. Caleb is nearing my height and has that strange fuzzy spot on each corner of his mouth that tells me he is getting too close to grown up to suit me. He looks more like his daddy every day, but still has his own personality that is part fire, part sweet breeze and part spring rain... there just is no other way to describe him than that to me. He's growing up.... it's bittersweet like the rest of raising kids I guess.

Well, now that you are so very completely caught up little blog of mine. I must go declutter the bathroom today!!

Surely Not!

2008-02-05T20:46:00.000-05:00

This cannot be the 5th of February yet!!! it just can't, I haven't even had time to finish January! Between running back and forth to the dentist with my kids (3 appointments a week for the last two and a half weeks!!) and trying to get things in order at home and getting ready for this year's bee season and gardening stuff all on top of fixing this ancient computer in my *spare* time I've just been tail chasin' busy.

In trying to find the bright side of being so frazzled and out of sorts... the kids will soon be finished getting all of their dental care up to date, and in a few weeks Fred and Jared will both have their glasses too! I'll never understand why on this earth the dentist's office couldn't find any way at all to schedule the appointments in such a way that all of them could have been on the same day at least. The extra gas going in the suburban for all the trips to the dentist ate over half of our grocery budget for the last two weeks, and we still have next week to go!

Sorry to have been so behind on blogging but this is just a hectic time for me. The kids have been busy too. Aside from going to the dentist so often that the receptionist now knows us all by first name and what school subject each child likes the least (they do schoolwork in the waiting room) the kids have also been busy getting ready for making splits with the bees (increasing the hives), planning this years garden, and they butchered chickens for the first time. Fred is working on getting more bunny babies soon now that it's a bit warmer and the critter space is a bit less crowded. The kids are also still working on business plans. They have to get busy and form an LLC this year and get a tax number for the business too, plus insurance and all the other technical things that go along with owning a business.

Now that everyone is bored to tears.... at least you can't say I haven't blogged. I'll try to be in a better bloggy mood soon!

A little overwhelmed but ......

2008-01-24T11:57:00.000-05:00

Those were some of the first words from my mouth this morning to a friend of mine back home who had called just to say hi and see how I was doing. Am I the only person who ever gets behind in house chores and errands and kid's dental appointments and that kind of stuff and then just feels overwhelmed by the energy required to get caught back up? It seems as though I have been constantly moving for the longest time now!

After being sick for a bit and trying to get my heart to beat correctly again there were so many things left waiting for me to do, and don't you know that every one of those piles of stuff and lists of errands and rescheduled appointments mocked my every breath that they were still there waiting for me. I've spent every day this week running from one place to the next at break neck speed all while trying to appear cheerfully together and organized.... for those of you who know me well hahahahahahaha.

Despite feeling run over with lists and chores and the endless multi-tasking we moms must endure all day every day things are going good. I can be thankful that finally I am able to get the kids to see a dentist, and that finally we can get Fred her glasses and stop watching her squinch up her cute little face while she reads. I can be thankful that our poor old falling apart suburban is holding up to all of those errands and toting the boys back and forth to their jobs to boot. I can be thankful that we made it through the coldest days of the year without having to buy any heating oil (at over $3 a gallon), and that our home has stayed comfortably warm all winter so far. I am thankful that Troy has stayed healthy enough to work despite the onslaught of nasty viruses all around us and that even though there were many days that the company closed shop without pay the last three months our bills have been paid and there has definitely been no food shortages. And I am so very very very thankful that my peace in knowing my needs are met is not dependent on our stock market or a 401K or any other such gamble but on the God of the universe who owns all I'll ever need and distributes such needful things to me in abundance!!!!!!!!

So even though at times the circumstances of my life may seem overwhelming I'm still on shouting ground anyway! I even caught myself in the dentist's waiting room telling the other moms in there how good the Lord has been to my family and that no matter what we were going through that very minute we just had to say God is Good anyway, all while my little preacher boy sat there grinning his head off with the blood tinged gauze from his extraction peeking out the corner of his mouth.

It's been an adventurous week for us all. Fred had wanted to get her hair done (for the first time ever) for her birthday gift so a sweet friend went along with us for a girly day of hair and beauty and then lunch. Fred's new hair cut looks fabulous with lots of layers and when she curls it she looks even more stunning that she does normally. We found a picture in the style books at the beauty place that we loved and so I got mine cut the very same way but I part mine different and being older now my hair is not nearly as thick as Fred's. We both love our new hair styles though and it's extra good that we were able to keep our long long hair and still get a style we are happy with.

While we were waiting for our turn at the beauty place our good friend was getting her hair cut (into an adorable style btw). Fred and I were talking to the lady who does the make-up stuff there (since Fred wanted to learn about that too)and in conversation that lady asked me if my friend was my other daughter!! I know that I look a little older than I actually am but I had no idea how bad I must have looked to have been mistaken for my less-than-a-decade younger friend's mother! At first the comment didn't bother me at all and I laughed about it. But as the day wore on and I got used to my new look it occurred to me that not looking at least well groomed and well ....er, um, ah.... 'maintained' could possibly harm my testimony, not to mention cause my poor sweet Hunk O Honey to wonder why in the world I just didn't try to make myself 'purty for him if nothing else. By that evening I was suffering true heartache in knowing that my husband truly did desire for me to continue to look as attractive as I can yet over the years I had allowed myself to fall into such disarray that I could be mistaken for my not-really-that-much-younger-than-me friend's mother. My poor Hunk O Honey!!!

Now, don't you go and take me wrong. I am NOT a big "it's all about appearances" kind of girl and anyone who knows me knows that. I do believe though that we should look as though we care enough to take care of ourselves. I had gotten into a terrible habit of running about with my hair in a pony tail and just swiping a wash cloth across my face in the morning regardless of what I was doing or where I was going, and I won't go into details about how I have been dressing until now other than to say SHABBY but not chic in any way shape or form. I'm sure that most people did not look at me and think anything good at all though. So under deep conviction that I simply had not been doing as I should I vowed to myself to daily do my hair in something other than a "scrunchy" and to take much better care of my appearance. I want people to look at me and see someone who appears to be well taken care of.... after all I am well taken care of by my Savior and I really really want that to show to others.

So anyway, just that whole 'I have got to take better care of me' plan gave me at least half a dozen more projects to put on the list of things that overwhelm me but I really believe that it's worth it. Just the way my Hunk O Honey's eyes shined at me the evening I had my hair done and wore a nice outfit and just enough make up to look not totally wrung out and at the end of my rope is worth it. I tore through my dresser this morning throwing out clothes that I "rat" around the house in and as I was doing that it occurred to me that I used to dress better to go to work in a dairy barn! How awful is that??!!! Next on the list is the closet. Fred and I are both on a mission to improve the way we take care of ourselves and praying that it will help us to take better care of all of the other things and people we love too.

Anyway, that's enough rambling from me for today. I have chicken and stock cooking for chicken and dumplings tonight and laundry going and a pile of ironing to do as tall as I am. Y'all have a wonderful day!

And she went and did it anyway!

2008-01-18T10:16:00.001-05:00

I told that girl that she was NOT allowed to have any more birthdays. I told her that she was to forever remain 14 years old, period and that was that. I told her that there was just NO WAY that I could possibly endure watching both of my baby girls turn into women no matter what she said.(nevermind the fact that the other baby girl is turning 25 next month and a momma herself) I told her all of those things and then some.... but she went and did it anyway.

Just a few days ago my precious, sweet, adorable, lovable, beautiful, wonderful, but not quite perfect Fred let January 16 turn on the calendar and let herself turn 15 whole years old! Mercy me, I just don't know how I'll survive. I thought I was being rather generous in allowing her to celebrate the yearly anniversary of her 14th birthday and all week long we planned for her anniversary cake and anniversary dinner. I even wrote on the top of her cake "Happy 1st Anniversary of your 14th Birthday Fred" (which is a lot of writing on top of a cake by the way).

So much for being in denial! It's heartbreaking now to see other mommys make that awful wish that their child/children would hurry up and get potty trained or learn to read on their own or grow past this phase of that phase of growing. Truthfully, it's over so fast you don't really remember getting started in raising those kids when their grown. I'm just thankful that my kids have grown into people that I like and can be proud of..... not perfect but wonderful anyway.

So anyway, happy (late) BIRTHDAY Fred. Every year you grow more beautiful and me and your Daddy couldn't love you more if we tried.

Back to the subject of health

2008-01-09T10:53:00.000-05:00

Today I'm not ranting about msg or any of the other horrible food additives that are slowing killing and maiming so many of us. I'm just being thankful for the provisions that the Lord has made for us in nature to eat healthy foods that can also help to heal our bodies and thankful that He has also provided herbs and other things in nature that we can use freely as our medicine.

It seems like I have almost always used the things in nature as medicine, from blackberry leaf tea for "the scoots" like grandma taught me way way back when (it helps tremendously btw!) to homemade wild cherry cough syrup and elderberry syrup for colds and flu bugs.... making medicine from things that grew in the yard, garden and woods was just part of life for me for a long time. When my parents split up and we moved to town and away from grandma and the other people who lived by the "old ways" those things fell by the wayside in my life until I got older and had children of my own. A colicky baby brought me quickly back to the things that are free, natural and work well with just a little bit of effort.

Now that my kids are older and so curious about all of this "herbal healing" type stuff I've been trying to teach them and help them learn to be as responsible as possible for their own health but found that in order to be able to truly say I've educated them I have much to learn myself. My biggest struggles aren't with how to make the remedies that I know work and are harmless in use or which herbs or plants or even which parts of those plants to use when. My struggles are with the proper vocabulary and such that I probably should know but never learned. The way that I was taught was always in simple terms like "rip up some of those leaves" or "mash in a few of those berries" not by their proper names but their common names. I want the kids to know how to identify the plants by their proper names and such things as that ... those things I have to learn myself.

But anyway, my point in talking about all of this is not what I'm teaching the kids or even why. My point is that there is so much that everyone can do to be more responsible for their health. Instead of reaching for that chemical filled over the counter cold medicine every time a child is ill why not take the natural measures to strengthen their immune systems and try to do what you can to treat their illness without medication before you resort to chemicals?

For example, it's the season for kids to catch those viruses. At our house that means extra handwashing, extra vitamin C, elderberry syrup if they've been exposed to the yuckies, and at the first sign of sniffles the sinus lavage that they normally do one time a day is increased to two or three times, the olive leaf extract and garlic capsules are handed out along with cod liver oil capsules and the hot liquids in the diet are increased. If the sniffles last longer than a day we use GOOT to help boost the immune system as well as fight off whatever is attacking and a sinus steam with herbs like peppermint and thyme and essential oils of tea tree and eucalyptus to help with the congestion.

Yes, it's a little bit of effort and sometimes not so pleasant such as when your young one is sitting under a towel tent over a steaming pan coughing, snorting and spitting the yucky stuff out.... but I'll tell you that it works and it's well worth it. My kids are all extraordinarily healthy and I have only had to take any of them to a doctor's office 2 times in the past 5 years. I'll take that little unpleasantness and small amount of extra work any day over doctor bills and the unpleasantness of sitting in the waiting room being exposed to everyone else's yuckies.

I would encourage everyone to just start thinking about more natural ways in to improve your health and your families health this year. Learning a little bit about the basic things that you can do naturally with herbs to improve your health is really not hard and it's fascinating to study. Cheri has a great deal right now on a beginner herbal course for $15 and I think you should check it out. For $15 you don't have much to lose! The kids are going to be going through this course for the next few weeks and are really excited.

While it may sound really gross to some people one of the easiest and best ways to protect yourself and your family from allergies and viral infections and such is to learn to use a neti pot or other means of sinus lavage. My family uses a bottle instead of a neti pot now because it is so much easier for the kids and it's easier on the Hunk 'O Honey's back too. We all used to suffer terribly from allergies and sinus trouble, Caleb used to have nosebleeds several times a day but the sinus lavage has dramatically changed all of that. It's well worth trying, especially since we no longer take daily or even on any regular basis any kind of allergy medication or decongestant medication. For severe sinus infections we have on occasion added colloidal silver to the Hunk O Honey's bottle as he welds for a living and the mess that poor man breathes in is full of bad stuff that causes lots of problems and the silver is a natural antibiotic.

The sinus steam bath is also really helpful for congestion, headaches, tension, allergies and so on. The Deliberate Agrarian has a great post on his peppermint zing sinus sauna that EVERYONE should read. Around here we will often add tea tree oil and eucalyptus oil to the peppermint for the antibacterial, antifungal, and antiviral properties as well as the extra soothing power, and lavender essential oil helps with headaches as well as being helpful with fighting off bacteria etc. We have often put a tablespoon or two of dried thyme in as well. The essential oil of thyme or thymol is used in products like Vap O Rub and such and has some very strong antibiotic properties. It is still used in many animal medications to treat serious respiratory infections, and it's even good for treating mites and the viral infections they carry in our beehives.... so it sure can't hurt you.

I hope to keep posting from time to time about simple things to do to improve your health. But the day is slipping by me now and I have things to do so that's all for now. Have a great day!

The Shortage

2008-01-04T17:10:00.000-05:00

I actually got almost all of my work done earlier today while the kids were finishing up with some school work so now while my sweet Hunk O Honey is out running a couple of errands I have a few minutes to blog something that has been on my mind a great deal for months and months now.

The young woman (or not so young as the case sometimes may be) who chooses to follow the Lord and turns away from the deceit of feminism and the lies that she was ~~spoon fed daily as she grew up via every tv show, book,song, and vesture of society~~ told about "having it all" and "coming a long way baby" and all that junk faces a crisis nearly immediately after receiving that wonderful gift of salvation.... or maybe that was just me.

I stumbled so long and fell so hard so many times (and occasionally still do, though not as much now) trying to figure out just what is this "godly woman" that I'm supposed to turn into... and if that wasn't daunting enough in itself, how in the world was I supposed to raise daughters up to be one! That overwhelming feeling of "NOW WHAT DO I DO! AND HOW DO I DO IT! AND WHO AM I...AND WHERE AM I GOING" overtook me more than once and I can clearly remember going to church and to prayer meetings and thinking that I had no business being there and there was no way on this planet or any other that I could possibly fit in or have any place in this kind of setting. I felt like a barn boot trying to find purpose for itself among a room full of strappy high heels.

I can remember so clearly seeing the women in the first church that I ever attended and thinking "there is NO WAY I can ever be like that!" as some of them would go about greeting visitors or helping the mommies of the little ones get their babies settled into the nursery or serving the meal and chatting about the goodness of the Lord with other young Christians after the service. I remember being totally stunned by the wide variety of attitudes and mannerisms, and multitudes of expressions of joy that I saw in all of those sweet ladies and feeling shocked that godly women were not the borg-like monotone, bland, repetitive robots I had always envisioned them to be.

I gradually lost interest in watching women I didn't know and though I learned a lot from simply reading scripture, there is still absolutely nothing in the world that teaches like a living example does. I still thank the Lord every day for every good example of a loving godly woman He ever allowed me to have in my life.... but most especially for the few and I mean FEW who were sweet enough and kind enough and concerned enough and selfless enough to take the time to pray with me and read scripture with me and LISTEN to me as I tried to become what I was desperately trying to learn to be. I'm still learning, and I'm still incredibly thankful for those women who are willing to be a help and share their experience and make that sacrifice of time for which I could never give an equal reward.

I could (and maybe will someday) write a book of all the things I wish so desperately to have been taught. From how to teach my children, to how to be a godly wife, to how to keep my home in order and grocery shop with a budget, to handling a disagreement with another lady and how to share my concerns for one of my sisters in the Lord appropriately.... I've needed to be taught. Not only those things but I needed to be taught from the very beginning how to live... just live the day to day life in such a way as to protect my testimony and reach out to those around me for Him.

I don't for one minute believe that the Lord intended for every woman who comes to Him to have to learn to live a godly life by the "skinned knees & broken heart method" like I have had to so many times. I don't believe either that the Lord intended for us to have no choice but to ~~become prey to~~ rely on the marketing skills of ~~extortionists~~ other women who have gone before us to sell us their books, videos, and magazines in order for us to learn these things. Titus chapter 2 speaks very clearly on that and I won't repeat it all here right now but I will say that I believe the Lord's intention was that women teach other women how to live in Him.... and just because I can say it here (since it's my blog!) I'll also add that I don't believe He meant for it to be a daily wage earning endeavor either, rather a lifestyle of sisterly love that is lived out in our day to day lives for HIS honor and glory rather than to heap up praise (and income)for ourselves.

I've been told ~~more than enough~~ often that my view on this is wrong. I've been told that all any woman ever needs is her husband, her bible, and a good preacher. I've been told that no one needs to have a mentor and no one needs to be taught how to be a godly woman because if she is truly saved the Holy Spirit will convict her when changes are needed and she will receive understanding through reading the scriptures. I've been told that if a woman needs specific instruction and it should happen to cost a bit of money that if it is truly a need the Lord will provide that without hesitation.... followed by a repeat of the first statements about what a woman truly needs multiple times.

I'm not saying that a woman can't be saved without a good solid godly Titus 2 woman to learn from, and I'm not saying that a woman can't become a godly wife and mother and church member without a mentor or teacher or older lady to example Christian living. I AM saying that without women who were willing to study with me and pray with me and work along side of me showing me with their own lives how to live each day in dependence on the Lord.... I floundered and fell and stumbled along suffering many hurts needlessly.I AM saying that who in their right mind (or spirit) would wish that on a baby Christian? I AM saying that growing pains don't always have to hurt as bad as they sometimes do. I AM saying that life in Christ is full of joy, but that it also carries sorrow and we are to help bear one another's burdens.

And before I get bashed over the head too hard about the 'for personal gain' comments.... let me say that there is nothing wrong with making a living, pursuing a profit or making a buck where you can. I am saying PLEASE don't do it and then get puffed up about yourself and start going around talking about your 'method' or 'program' or 'plan' as though it is taken directly from the mouth of the Lord and is the only way for a person to live right for Christ. I have had my fill of seeing young Christians who just want to do right and live right spend themselves to death trying to find out how to do it!

There is such a shortage now of women who are willing to take any time away from ~~their latest hobby or shopping trip or visit with their gal pals~~ their duties in their own lives to help younger women in the Lord grow. Could it be that this is the reason we have so many stunted Christians now? Could this be part of the reason why our churches are not growing as we would like to see them? Could this be why some women come to the altar asking the Lord to save them and then fall out of fellowship in such short periods of time? Could this be the reason some churches have such conflict among the women in the congregation...that there are no bonds of fellowship formed between them?

The results of the failure of women to do such simple things as visit new Christian ladies and pray with them, or form friendships with them and help them along are all around us today. You can see them in the jaded eyes of the young lady who says she "used to go to church but I don't have time now", or the woman who looks you level in the eye and says " I can study at home as well as I can at church", or the bitter snappy tone of "I don't need a church to know Jesus", and haven't we all met that lady who just looks so battle worn it tears your heart to bits as she says "I just don't have the time". If you really think about it it's heartbreaking so ladies... who can you call this week? Who can you go see on your way to the grocery store? Who can you invite, just one more time, to come to church this week? Who can you share just a tiny part of what the Lord has blessed you with this week?

One of my favorite "Titus 2" ladies that I've ever known never hesitated to take the opportunity to show me she loved me in some little way. It may have been a phone call as she was heading to town to see if she could pick up an item or two from the store for me, or just stopping by on her way down the road to see how my sick child was feeling. The phone call to ask how I was doing for no special reason, the well timed card in the mail just to remind me that she was there if I needed to talk, the invitation to come over and pray or study scripture... those things were like baby Christian vitamins! I can't tell you how much I learned from her in those brief bits of time here and there, week by week, and year by year! Her constant encouragement to "call if you need anything", her helpful advice (without judgment or criticism) when problems popped up, her sweet words of encouragement when she could tell I was having a hard time, her never failing to say "can I pray for you?" and then doing it RIGHT THEN AND THERE.... all of those things helped me grow and to hang in there when things were hard. There should never be a shortage of women willing to do those things, but there is and ladies... we are the only ones who can change that! Think about it, study about it and pray about it... then do as the Lord leads you.

Being quiet

2008-01-03T13:51:00.000-05:00

It's a rare day when I sit down to blog twice in the same day. I guess it's a cheating sort of way to force myself to sit still for awhile and take a break of sorts. My mind doesn't seem to want to slow down but my body really HAS to, at least for a little while.

Like I said in an earlier post there are changes on the way around our house and in our lives. I guess this is the time of year for reflecting on the year that is now gone and evaluating it bit by (sometimes)painful bit. So much has changed in our family so quickly since Troy got saved that the last two and a half years or so have felt like a tilt a whirl at the county fair back home.... as soon as I think I've caught my balance and can make out the shapes in the distance they disappear in a blur again. I've literally spent nights sweating it out in prayer just seeking God for the grace to hang on, just waiting for that specific line to follow. Yet, knowing all along that He has shown me time and time again where to begin.... and time and time again I have failed miserably.

So here we are treading water so to speak (er type?) with our lives in a strange holding pattern that isn't the mountain top or the valley, but that shifting and uncertain in-between land where the only thing you can do is take each step in faith listening with all your heart so that you don't accidentally miss that still small voice that will always answer in the moment of quietness that seems most fleeting. Since late last summer I've been studying about quietness and stillness in the scriptures, for a lot of years quiet was the thing that my life lacked the most, so now that it makes the more than occasional appearance I can't help but notice the contrast and ask the Father to reveal Himself more to me during those times.

I used to fear those times of quiet because they almost always came before an enormous storm.... like the 'summer of sixteen' when me and the Hunk o' Honey were suddenly bombarded with extra children to care for. Within a week's time we went from being a household of 2 adults and 2 children 2 and under to a household of 2 adults with 16 children 13 and under, 4 of those being under 2. Right before that happened we were sitting on our porch late one evening in the quiet after having stripped and waxed the hardwood floors in our new-to-us home thinking and talking about how nice it was to have some quiet time with the babies in bed to enjoy the stars and the cool evening air. That storm of a summer gave us many blessings and many tears and trials, and even a few scars but I've never forgotten the quiet before the storm and in looking back I've often wondered what I could have done beforehand that would have made weathering the storm easier. But that's just one example of why I've always feared the quiet times.

I've also feared those times of quiet because they almost always seem to bring behind them big changes that may or may not be things I will be happy with. A few months before we moved out here there was a time of quiet. Things didn't seem too bad or too good, and there was just a steady rhythm to the days. Just when I feared that I was falling into a rut of sorts with the day to day routineness of things; in blew the storm.... and it raged on for months with the end result being a cross country move for my family and being separated from so many of the people and things we loved the most. But again, in looking back I wondered many times what could have been done to make weathering the storm easier and make the transitions it brings smoother.

I think that I've learned through all of those things, plus the many that I don't have time to type about that instead of fearing the quiet I need to use that time to listen. To put my head to the Savior's chest and just hear what His heart would speak to mine. I've learned that if I listen he will speak to me and tell me just what He needs me to know.... instead of what I think I need to know. Today the Lord reminded me of a time that I didn't know what to do and all I had to do was listen to hear him and let go of the things I was wrestling with. He reminded that during ALL of those storms He stood there with me and never let me suffer more than He was able to help me bear. I've learned to use the quiet to draw nearer to Him .... He is my strength and apart from Him I can withstand nothing at all.

So here I am, enjoying my quiet for today, and even being thankful that the Lord sees farther ahead than I am able to and that He gave me this time of quiet to prepare for whatever is ahead of me be it storm or blessing or more quiet.

Where have I been?

2008-01-03T07:03:00.000-05:00

A sweet friend emailed me to ask that question so I thought that even though it really hasn't been too terribly long I would post my whereabouts on here. We ended the year 2007 with a trip to the hospital emergency room for me on Sunday. Wouldn't you know it, as soon as I start talking about health again there goes mine acting up! It's nothing terribly serious I don't believe, my heart just took a spell of beating the wrong way again and we are really hoping that I'll be able to get some rest and that it will get back to normal on it's own.... at least that's what I am asking the Lord to do for me. If it doesn't resolve soon enough then I guess I will have to go back on all the medications that I've been blessed to be free of for the past few years and I would really rather not have to do that because of the side effects.

We did get to make it to the Watch night service for new years eve and it was wonderful as usual with plenty of great preaching. Bro. Hickman preached an especially convicting message on building walls and removing rubble that stirred me and the Hunk O' Honey in some big ways. Our home preachers did great too and our family is really charged up about getting reloaded for the Lord this year. My own little preacher boy (I have to learn to stop calling him little) preached about spiritual anemia....... it amazes me how the Lord has spoken to him about such simple things and given them such depth of meaning in the scriptures for him to share. I think we started this new year off the right way... convicted and praying that the Lord will make us vessels that He can use.

Now that all of the holiday hoopla is finally over and behind us we are really going to knuckle down and get the house in order (again) and get caught back up with our schooling. I spent all of yesterday cleaning out the fridge and making and canning soup and stock. The kids did lots of schoolwork yesterday and today will probably be a repeat of all of that... only with me taking a few more breaks than I did yesterday since I ended up feeling really awful by the end of the day.

We have turned off in a really horrible cold spell here and it seems that extreme temperatures in either direction automatically make it harder for my body to cooperate with my plans. The extra cold also means more work for us with the critters and trying to keep warm. The glass broke out of the fireplace insert late last night so me and the Hunk O' Honey were up late trying to get a piece of metal cut into place to keep it working temporarily since that is the only heat we have. We would really be miserable if the heat in the house was non existent like it is in the car! Thankfully today I don't have to go anywhere except outside a couple of times to thaw the critters water and to get more wood for the fire.

So, now that everyone knows that I haven't fallen off the planet and that things are sorta kinda almost nothing like normal around here.... I better go wake up the kids and get the rest of this day going. Y'all have a wonderful day!

Forgive me for rambling, but

2007-12-28T16:58:00.000-05:00

What is it about this time of year that causes us to look over the past 12 months and seriously ponder those things in our lives that need changing? Maybe it's tradition or maybe it's some sort of cyclical emotional response that we just fall into after the highs and lows of so many back to back celebrations, but whatever it is I guess if it causes us to look for ways to improve who and what we are then it's a good thing and maybe we should evaluate things like that more often than once a year. I usually tend to start looking over things toward the end of October and gradually try to figure out what the things in my life are that I am the least able to allow myself to continue doing or not doing that I ought to be and then try to come up with a reasonable solution. This year that list is a lot longer than I want to admit.

I have to say that me and my little family really have come such a long way in such a short period of time that a little part of me almost wants to just excuse all of those glaring shortcomings and go on about my life as is without guilt. Then the (somewhat) sensible side of me that knows that I have to set a better example for my kids every day says "shape up sister! let's get to work"..... so here I have been, perched not so contentedly on the corner of 'Falling short' and 'Walking upward'.... again.

I'm not kidding about coming along way in a short time. 3 years ago we were living in a shack that was literally falling down around us, eating nearly all junk food, telling time by what was on the tv, and for all intents and purposes slowly killing ourselves with the lazy laid back lifestyle that we thought at the time was "fun". We had no spiritual life to speak of other than the occasional memory of attending the sweet little country church a couple of years before that.... and it showed. Now we live in a comfortable home that meets our needs well, and we live here knowing that for now this is where the Lord wants us to be. We eat healthy (for the most part) meals and little junk food. Our tv is rarely even on and certainly not on the trash that used to be so welcomed in our home. We are outside everyday working and learning in fresh air, and our bodies are so much healthier now than what they have been in this decade!

As far as our spiritual lives.... well the difference is night and day. We love the Lord and every day make sure that we spend time with HIM, our church is pretty much our home away from home and we have no intention of making any kind of changes that are outside of what the Lord has for us in His plan.... but even with all of that being said, we could stand to be closer to Him and we could stand to spend more time with Him. So the first thing I plan to improve is how I approach my day to day walk with the Lord. We very faithfully have devotions and prayer time but I think where we really lack is that quiet alone time with the Lord to just have a private study or time to pray privately and I am determined to set that time aside no matter what else has to be pushed back or changed to get it. There are some other things in that vein that will be changing but I won't go any further into it here.

I'm also feeling really burdened about our physical health. I've talked about my health before but sometimes I just have to say it again... I deal with a chronic health disorder. It affects my heart and the way it functions and sometimes I faint, sometimes I feel so tired and grouchy that it's hard to care about anything. Sometimes it feels like my chest is about to cave in and that I may be taking my last breath at that particular moment in time. I get terrible headaches that cause me to be sick and unable to do anything but throw up for days at at a time.A lot of the time I feel like I am looking and hearing through a very long dark tube while being spun around by my feet and it makes me mad sometimes to be so helpless to change any of that. BUT----3 years ago I was fainting up to 6 times PER DAY! But now I faint maybe 3 times in 6 months.... if that much, and the rest of those symptoms are so much less now than before that for sometimes 2 week stretches of time I can convince myself that I'm perfectly normal....almost.

I said all of that to say this.... I intend to do everything I can to help continue to improve my health and my family's health. I am 100% convinced that our diet is a key to having a healthier life. Not just our food but the things that go in and out of our homes are keys too. (I have noticed that since we stopped using so many of those horrible toxic chemicals to "clean" our house we haven't been catching so many colds and such.) I know that even more changes are needed in our diets, and in our habits around our home to improve our health. I've been reading more and more about food lately and it's just scary what kind of "food" we are eating. The fastest, smartest thing you can do to improve your family's health through your diet start reading about MSG and aspartame. I double dare you........ just google it, type in' MSG + obesity ' or ' MSG addiction' and settle down for some interesting reading that should change the way you look at food forever. Here's one link on the truth about MSG to get you started.

My family's health is literally in my hands. I am the person who is responsible for choosing their food, preparing their food, and serving their food. In the last 2 years our diet is what has made the most dramatic change, and it's what changed most dramatically before things went downhill for us in the first place. We went from drinking fresh, whole milk straight from the farm and eating farm fresh produce and meat, doing all of our baking from scratch and using whole natural fats and being in top notch health all the time to almost the total opposite in the first few months of 2001. By the 3rd quarter of 2003 I had required a hysterectomy, Troy had required gallbladder surgery, all of us were catching frequent colds and viruses, I was fainting constantly and on nearly a dozen daily medications, the kids weren't sleeping well, we were all feeling exhausted all the time, and our overall health was definitely on the downward trend.

Now, I can't say that our diet is the sole cause of all the health problems we've had but I can say that when we were eating fresh whole foods and none of this processed stuff with a yard long list of chemicalized and processed to death compounds in the ingredient list we were extremely healthy, and I can say that now that we are working toward weeding out the processed junk again we are improving our health dramatically. High fructose corn syrup, soybean oil, and msg are all things that are slowly killing us and they are present in almost everything you buy at the grocery store or restaurant. It amazes me that people won't pay the price or take the time to prepare healthy foods for their families but they will gladly shell out hundreds of dollars (or more) each month for health care and dental bills and medications and time lost from work and spend so much time scheduling those appointments and going to them.

And that's all I have to say about that.... for now. I can tell you that there are changes on the way folks.... big ones and little ones but all have been soaked in prayer and I know that they are necessary. All that talk about food has made me hungry now, and my family is patiently waiting for me so I had better stop blogging for now.

Count your blessings... Part 2

2007-12-21T09:18:00.000-05:00

Thank you all so much for COUNTING YOUR BLESSINGS. I've gotten so many emails that I still haven't had time to read them all through! I'll post a couple of the emails that I got now and hopefully I will be able to find the time to put the rest of them up later on today (after I do all of my errands and chores). I'm so happy to read the blessings that the Lord has been pouring out on His people!!!

First, I'll copy and paste the email from my sweet friend Miss Willie. I was so glad to get the email from her, she is one of my oldest and dearest friends back home and clearly remembers living next door to me when our sweet little Fred child was in diapers! I wish I had time for editing but today is busy so here you go.
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Oh dearest Jeannie,
Reading today that you are counting your blessings is a blessing itself. So many times during the Christmastime season people get down and blue over what they can't do or can't have or can't receive and it's terrible but it makes me mad. Tell the children that Psalm 84 is one of my favorite places to read too and that it, just like the rest of God's Word Will Never Fail! I have plenty of pies to bake and am helping the rest of the ladies today with the packages for the shut ins here so I have to get busy and tell you my blessings.

I am blessed and so thankful that I lived long enough after my own salvation to see every member of my family with the exception of one sister who thinks I am crazy get saved themselves. To me it was better and even sweeter than seeing my grandchildren born to see the people I love so dearly come to the cross and claim the promise of salvation for themselves.

I am blessed and thankful that the Lord has given me a good husband and that we are both still healthy despite being in our old age. My man is 85 this year and thank the Lord he is still able to bail his own hay and tend the cattle at the farm.

I am blessed and thankful that I have so many people to love and care for in my life. I have a family that by today's standards is very large and now that my oldest is back in this state we are all , except one grandson who is serving the Lord in Africa, within a half days drive of one another. I also have so many friends to thank the Lord for who have been such wonderful blessings to me over the years. The ones I am closest to that you always called the little old lady brigade come to mind as we have all served the Lord together for so many years now, from the time our own children were young to now in hard times and times when the crops were big we made sure we came together as often as possible to do something for the Lord. That ability to serve hand in hand with family and friends is one of my greatest blessings.

I am blessed and thankful for my home and for my home town. It's been such joy over the years now to see the Lord continue to work in this little place but bittersweet to see how many continue to deny him. Please keep praying for our mayor, you know he still needs the Lord. But also I think of your husband's family here and how badly they need to get close to the Lord. I know how much you used to love this little place and how much it hurt you to leave here but please keep praying for our little town Jeannie.

I am blessed and thankful to know a good number of new Christians and what a blessing to ssee them growing in the Lord! I can think of few things in life that are finer than being a part of a new Christians life.

I am blessed and thankful that I have what I need and that I know that the Lord will continue to provide for my needs every day. Remember that what we need is not the same as what we always want, you know yourself that sometimes people really do need a swift kick in the seat the same way a rebellious child will need the occasional swat on the backside. Life can't always be chocolate and roses but like I've always told you, somtimes there is pie.

My time to sit still today is nearly goen. You know how busy we stay and I have so much baking to do so I can't write much more. I am really thankful that the ice has melted and it's a bit warmer now. I worry so about the old ones and the ill ones here with that horrible weather. I am thankful for you dear Jeannie and how I've seen you growing over the time I've known you and I'm thankful that you've continued to raise your children in the Lord. I'm thankful that our God is gracious and loveing and kind and will give us second chances when we need them too. I'm thankful that you and Troy have surrendered your family to the care of the Only One who can take care of you.

I have to go get my pies working and finish the candys. Much love to the children from us and be kind to yourself for a change.
Willie

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Here is another one from my friend back home ..... Mindy.

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hey jeannie
i don't know why but i'm always scared to leave comments on your blog. we are all doing good and the kids say hi. i wish you were here or i was there but i guess the Lord has us where we are for a reason.
i'm thankful for being saved and for the changes i see in my life now. our preacher says growing hurts sometimes and we should be thankful for it anyway. it hasn't all hurt though and i can honestly say i've never been happier than i am now. please pray that aaron will get saved soon.
i'm thankful that the kids are growing and healthy and smart. michelle and evan are both reading everything they can get to and dwayne is talking up a storm.
i'm thankful for my church and don't know how i could get by from day to day without a good place to worship the Lord and good fellowship.
i'm thankful for my mom getting saved. she says please send more tapes. she is going to church with me all the time now too and seems to be really happy for the first time since i was a kid.
i'm thankful for the Lord helping me when things are hard for me to do. it's awesome how when you don't think you can do something that you know you have to do how you just get the grace you need.
love you, tell everyone hi,
mindy

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That's all I will put up right now, but please don't forget to count your blessings too!!!! Have a wonderful day.

Count your blessings!

2007-12-20T08:45:00.000-05:00

I've been having myself a really good time this morning counting my blessings. I truly do have much to be thankful for, and every day that list only grows and grows. I thought it might be fun to "share" our blessings a bit on my blog. I would love to "hear" your blessings too so if you would like to please either leave a comment to this post or email me and I'll post yours anonymously ...... nothing tickles me more than talking about the wonderful things the Lord does for HIS children.

Here are mine (this is NOT a complete list and in no particular order of importance):

I have a nice sturdy home to live in that the Lord lowered the rent on so that we could live here. We are able to keep our house warm in a manner that we can afford . Our home is far enough out of town that we can keep our critters, have our garden and still only be a ten minute drive from our church!

I am much healthier now than I have been in years and years and it is only because the Lord has blessed me. I still have some bad days from time to time but they are far fewer and farther between than in the past. The Lord has helped me in finding ways to improve my overall health and manage my disorder (neurological and involving my heart) without a bunch of nasty and expensive medicines and doctors visits. Not only has my health improved dramatically but our entire family is healthier now.

Me and my sweet Hunk 'O Honey are happier and more in love now than we ever thought we could be. The Lord has healed our marriage and restored what we had nearly destroyed. If the Lord had not intervened in our lives we would certainly have gone our separate ways and farther out into sin and ultimately would have destroyed our family..... but God in His goodness touched our broken hearts and now half the time we are as bad as newlyweds! I'm so thankful that the Lord has worked in our marriage and I pray that it just keeps getting sweeter as the years pass.

My kids are healthy and strong and they love the Lord. The times of fellowship that the kids and I have in studying our Bibles just gets sweeter and better as they grow. We've been studying Psalm 84 and have found the blessings there to be so rich that we've just stayed there all week long. The kids have even decided to commit that Psalm to memory and have worked on it all week.

Though our budget is still tight our needs are always met..... sometimes in sudden and totally unexplainable ways! I needed to go to the doctor this week but knew that the cost of the office visit alone would mean not being able to pay one of the bills. After agonizing and nearly driving myself nutso I drove to the doctor's office and received my FREE visit! With no explanation there was NO CHARGE for the office visit!

From the things like the doctor's visit which was fairly important to me to the smallest details of my day the Lord meets our needs. Just a couple of weeks ago we were running really low on groceries and I had run completely out of sugar and had just not been able to find the time to go to the store. The very same day that I had run out I was pouting because I knew I would have to get up the next morning and start my day with yucky black coffee instead of my mildly sweetened version that I love. That night someone left sacks of groceries on my steps and in them was a bag of sugar!

The kid's business has done so well that they've sold out of most everything they had! (They will be restocking and moving to a different site soon) They were able to meet their goal of purchasing enough sugar to feed all 3 hives of bees through the winter months and enough of some supplies to get started in the spring with increasing their hives. They have learned A LOT about dealing with people and how to handle losses (some folks did rip them off) and they've learned more about business than I ever thought they would (conversations about "costs of goods sold" and "return on investment" and "product development" are common now).

Our church and church family are a HUGE blessing to us and it's one of the things that we are most thankful for on a daily basis. I remember so well when we first came here how foreign it felt to us to be under this kind of preaching but now I am so thankful for the preaching of the truth and the fellowship that we have in our church! Church family truly describes our church and I pray that it always stays that way. In all the churches that I've ever been to or visited this is only the second one where the people there truly love and care for one another like a family..... it's sad but true that too many churches are too caught up in their programs and cluttered up busyness to really take the time to love each other the way they should. I'm so very thankful for our church, it's stand on the truth, the fellowship of the people there, and most of all the presence of the Lord there and I pray that all of those things get richer and deeper this coming year!

I'm thankful that I can look back over the year that's almost over now and see so many answers to prayer and sometimes it seems as though I could just see the hand of the Lord touching my life the way my hands touch bread dough to knead it and shape the loaves or rolls.... just that kind of woven through full contact touching and I'm thankful for that.

I have so many more things that I'm thankful for like good friends and neighbors and Troy's job and other things but my blogging time is over (awhile ago). I'm thankful for having so many blessings that I can't count them all in writing for lack of time! Please do share your blessings too...... I love to hear how the Lord blesses other people too!

Just thought I would share this with y'all

2007-12-17T16:08:00.000-05:00

I have read quite a few of this man's articles and always found them thought provoking and interesting reads. This one really stood out to me in light of the increase in senseless shootings and I thought I would share it here.

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Buy A Gun
by Chuck Baldwin
December 14, 2007

"He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one." (Luke 22:36 KJV)

Most of us are aware that the heroic actions of a brave woman at the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado a few days ago saved the lives of perhaps scores, or even hundreds, of people. However, her bravery would not have counted for much had she not been armed.

On that fateful December Sunday, a man by the name of Matthew Murray entered the church armed to the teeth. According to press reports, he was armed with a semi-automatic rifle, two handguns, some smoke grenades, and more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition.

By the time Murray arrived in the Colorado Springs church, he had already killed four people: two at a missionary training center miles away, and two in the church parking lot. He had wounded several others. No one realized it at the time, but the man was a serial killer in the midst of a rampage. He doubtless planned to kill as many people as he could, as there were thousands of people inside the church. Had there not been an armed citizen in the church house, the death toll would have been massive.

According to church spokesmen, the congregation has over a dozen members who volunteered to serve as security personnel for the church. Jeanne Assam was one of those volunteers.

A former police officer, Assam said, "I saw him [Murray] coming through the doors, and I took cover, and I waited for him to get closer. I came out of cover, I identified myself and engaged him and took him down." Murray died in the exchange. Although Assam shot him several times with her 9mm pistol, the coroner's office said that Murray actually succumbed to a self-inflicted gunshot wound. After being incapacitated by Assam's gunfire, Murray apparently turned one of his weapons on himself.

Chalk one up for the good guys, or in this case, good gals.

Have you noticed how the media dropped the Colorado story as soon as it was discovered that a lawfully armed citizen ended the potential massacre by using her own handgun? Had the killer been successful in murdering scores of people, however, it would have been at the top of the news for weeks. As it is, the story is already buried in the dungeon section of the news, if it is in the news at all.

One thing the national news media will always ignore is the practice of lawful self-defense. For example, most people are probably not aware of the fact that American citizens use a firearm to defend themselves more than 2.4 million times EVERY YEAR. That is more than 6,500 times EVERY DAY. This means that, each year, firearms are used 60 times more often to protect the lives of honest citizens than to take lives. Furthermore, of the 2.4 million self-defense cases, more than 192,000 are by women defending themselves against sexual assault. And in less than eight percent of those occasions is a shot actually fired. The vast majority of the time (92%), the mere presence of a firearm helps to avert a major crime from occurring. That is what Congressman Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD) concluded after extensive research. According to Rep. Bartlett, the number of defensive uses is four times the number of crimes reported committed with guns.

John Lott, senior research scientist at the University of Maryland, agrees with Bartlett. His book "More Guns, Less Crime" documents the fact that--instead of being a cause of crime--firearms in the hands of private citizens are actually a major deterrent to crime.

Another fact conveniently ignored by the major media is the connection between wanton killings and so-called "gun-free" zones. For an example of this, look no further than the Virginia Tech massacre. In spite of Virginia state laws that allow citizens to carry concealed weapons for self-defense, Virginia Tech forbade its students and faculty from carrying weapons for self-defense on campus. Had a student or faculty member been armed--as was Ms. Assam in the Colorado Springs attack--no doubt many, if not most, of the Virginia Tech victims would not have died. Obviously, bad guys do not pay any attention to "gun-free" zones, except to note that such zones create a free-killing environment.

Is it any wonder that those states and cities with the most restrictive gun control laws tend to also be home to the highest crime rates? The old saying is still true. "When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns." There is another saying I like even better. "When guns are outlawed, I will be an outlaw."

Even our Lord understood and validated the right of every person to arm themselves for personal self-defense. He said, "He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one." (Luke 22:36 KJV) The old Roman sword was the First Century equivalent of a modern handgun. It was the most practical and convenient form of self-defense available at that time. Also, please note that at least two of Jesus' disciples (one of whom was Simon Peter) were in the habit of carrying their own personal swords, and Jesus never rebuked them. (See Luke 22:38.)

Jesus also acknowledged, "When a strong man ARMED [emphasis added] keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace." (Luke 11:21)

Furthermore, the Apostle Paul said, emphatically, "But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel." (I Tim. 5:8) Does "not providing for his own" include not providing protection? Of course it does.

The right and, yes, obligation of personal self-defense is entrenched in both Christian and American tradition. People who would deny citizens the right to arm themselves are either naïvely ignorant or deliberately duplicitous. As Robert Heinlein said, "An armed society is a polite society."

America's Founding Fathers agreed with Heinlein. Thomas Jefferson said, "No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." He also said, "Laws that forbid the carrying of arms . . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes . . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."

Samuel Adams said, "[T]he said Constitution [shall] be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms."

James Madison said, "To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms."

Thomas Paine said, "[A]rms discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property . . . Horrid mischief would ensue were the law-abiding deprived of the use of them."

George Washington called the private collections of arms "the people's liberty's teeth."

America must always preserve the right to keep and bear arms. To do any less is to invite oppression and tyranny, not to mention acts of violence.

Some years back, Alan Rice of the Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (JPFO) wrote, "Since 1900 at least seven major genocides have occurred resulting in the murder of 50-60 million people:

*Ottoman Turkey, 1915-17; 1-1.5 million Armenians murdered;
*Soviet Union, 1929-53; 20 million anti-Communists and anti-Stalinists murdered;
*Nazi Germany & Occupied Europe, 1933-45; 13 million Jews, Gypsies, and Anti-Nazi murdered;
*China, 1949-52, 1957-60 & 1966-1976; 20 million anti-Communists murdered;
*Guatemala, 1960-1981; 100,000 Mayan Indians murdered;
*Uganda, 1971-1979; 300,000 Christians and Political Rivals of Idi Amin murdered;
*Cambodia, 1975-1979; 1 million murdered."

Rice continued to say, "In all seven of the genocides summarized above, gun control laws were in force before the genocide occurred, in some cases decades before. In five of the seven genocides, the lethal law, the gun control law was in force before the genocide regime took power."

Rice also said, "Gun control laws are usually enacted during a crisis or a perceived crisis." He then said, "Government officials, not hate groups or common criminals, were responsible for these seven genocides. In most of these cases the murder victims outnumbered their murderers; yet they were powerless to defend themselves because they were disarmed."

Do the math yourself. Absent an armed citizen, 32 innocent people lost their lives at Virginia Tech, while the presence of 1 armed citizen resulted in 2 innocent deaths in Colorado Springs. Furthermore, the presence of over 200 million firearms in the possession of the American people has done more to keep America free than any other human element--bar none!

Therefore, to help keep your family safe and your country free, go buy a gun.

© Chuck Baldwin

This column is archived as http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/c2007/cbarchive_20071214.html

Don't ya just hate it....

2007-12-12T15:00:00.001-05:00

When you have tried and tried to fight it and you end up sick anyway? Me and Fred have been fighting the latest virus going around for so long and we thought we had it beat. Until last night when I started running a fever and feeling like I was hit by a train. Hopefully though since I've been doing everything I can to fight this stuff off I will have beefed up my immune system enough to handle this better than I normally do! I hate being sick, especially when we have so much to do around here and my time at home seems so limited!

Fred and I had big soap making plans that have now been postponed and trimmed down to accomodate the two of us feeling so yucky. We did manage to make a small sampler batch of our newest creation.... Silk and Honey bars!! We have been playing around with adding silk fibers to our soaps and the batch we tried out we also tried our first stab at hot process soaping. We got so excited to see the saponification process happening so quickly that we totally forgot to add any scent to the soap at all so it's unscented. That's okay too though since we have a special friend who doesn't handle scents so well!

Hopefully we will both get over this virus soon and make lots and lots of soap. We would probably be making more right now but we are out of oils and I feel too yucky to stand and blend it right now. As soon as I am well enough to go to the store look out! There are some really cool benefits to doing the hot process soaps too, like you don't have to wait three weeks to use the soap.... perfect for impatient people like me. I have the oils infusing now for a new batch of eczema soap and oils infusing to make a silk soap with rosemary and spearmint and lemon. The only big drawback to hot process in the crock pot is that I have to do really tiny batches. We'll probably try in the mold in the oven hot process soon to get around that.

Well, I'm off to lay down.... letters are beginning to swim on the screen a bit. See ya.

Hi there

2007-12-10T09:31:00.000-05:00

Things as usual are busy around here but thankfully my sweet Hunk 'O Honey told me to stay home today and try to get rested up a bit and caught up on some of the work needing done around here. With all the extra work going on away from home and then the revival meetings at church we just haven't had much time to get anything done around here. Truth be told I could probably use about 2 months time to just get caught up at home but I don't expect to get it anytime soon.

We are trying to figure out what the best plan would be to get a better set up built for the chickens. We are still very interested in breeding some of the more rare/interesting breeds but with the dog problems and such we are going to have to invest the time and money in building a better home for them first. I have a great idea for a "chicken moat" around the garden but I lack the upper body strength to build it myself, not to mention the tools and the time to spend doing the work.

The chicken moat would be so good for us because it would lower the bug count in the garden dramatically and also keep out the rabbits.... my two biggest causes of loss out there. Plus it would reduce our workload since instead of hauling wagon load after wagon load of compost from one end of the property to the other all we would have to do would be rake it out onto the garden and spread it. The other plus is that we could easily turn the chickens and guineas out into the garden area (while protecting the plants) to scratch and eat the weed seeds and bugs and they can free range here and there instead of being totally confined all the time. Then the old chicken yard and house will be used as the rabbitry and storage.... handy since the bunnies are quickly taking over out there anyway!

We really want to get some speckled sussex chickens too! We are hoping that out of the remaining chickens there is a dominique hen and rooster (instead of them being all one or the other) and the same for the two australorps. Lord willing this spring we'll get the sussex chickens and some buff brahmas too and maybe a few other breeds. I'm trying to learn a less expensive way to feed them all though... at 11 bucks per 50 lb bag of feed these critters ain't cheap! I'm researching raising meal worms for the protein content and then feeding oats and corn and flax seed instead of pre-mixed feeds.

So now I've rambled on and on about the chickens... but we are also trying to get ready for goats. We really would like to try our hand at raising them but have been hung up on whether to get milk goats or meat goats. I think we've about decided to try for a nubian/boer cross that way we would have dual purpose goats. Jared may be going to work for a preacher down the road who is raising goats to get some experience working with them. Taeler is reading everything on the subject she can find and Caleb as usual is willing to do whatever work we tell him to. Troy is just praying that we make wise decisions about the breed and that the kids don't get livestock confused with pet. They haven't had any trouble with that so far but goats and sheep tend to be like large puppies and they have such personalities that Troy is concerned that the kids will give in to the urge to get attached.

The bees are doing good as far as we know. We are planning to inspect the hives later on this week to make sure that they are all queenright and storing food the way they should. If all goes well this winter we'll have the hives ready to begin making splits early in the spring and the kid's goal of 12 hives by mid summer will be attainable. The plan was to sell eggs all winter and early spring to buy the wooden ware and so on that they would need for the splits and the honey supers but with the loss of the chickens that they invested in we'll have to think that over.

Sometimes I just feel very very out of place around here. There isn't anyone else that I know here who is interested in the homesteading/simple living kind of stuff that we are and more often than not we are looked at funny for all the things we do with the critters and the garden and such. I miss living in the middle of nowhere with all the carhart/boot clad kids being the norm! I even miss having to drive so far to get to the store.... it sure did save Troy a lot of money too.

Speaking of saving money.... I was talking with someone the other day about one of my favorite websites in the web world, the Hillbilly Housewife. Miss Maggie has turned that website over to Miss Suzanne for those of you who weren't already aware. It will still have all of the HBHW recipes on it and articles but Miss Maggie just felt ready for something just a little different and she has begun a new website called Frugal Abundance. On her new website there is also a link to her new blog and there is plenty of information about what the changes are all about on the two websites.

Well folks, that's all the blogging time I have for now.... actually I've taken up more time than what I should have but you know how that goes. I hope everyone is having a good week so far.

It's nearly over already

2007-11-29T09:21:00.000-05:00

November that is. Time has just been flying around here lately and we are all feeling like we are chasing our tails trying to keep up. Thankfully we are all healthy even though there is a really yucky virus going around.... I know we just can't afford the time for any one of us to be sick right now. We have been using lots and lots of GOOT, Emergen-C, and our homemade Elderberry syrup (like Sambucol), plus we take garlic capsules and cod liver oil every night and drink as much water as we can. I'm praying that all that stuff is helping and the Lord will allow us to stay healthy because even just a little slowing down will make things even more difficult.

Since I've been so negligent in posting I'll do sort of an update.

-My Mom and my baby brother came to visit for 3 days. We enjoyed seeing them again and the kids loved visiting the beach with them and going hiking and to the Airborne museum. Since I've seen some of the folks from home I'm feeling much less homesick. (there's still a bunch of people I would love to see however)

-The price of heating oil for the house this year is ridiculously high and for a time we didn't have anything but the fireplace to keep the house warm with. The fireplace looks pretty but will only keep the livingroom warm so we were trying to figure out what to do about heat this winter. Thankfully our landlord called us seemingly out of the clear blue sky and asked if we would like to put in a fireplace insert with a blower to help heat the house. So now we are keeping warm for just the cost of chainsaw gas!

I have really missed having wood heat too, it just feels warmer to me.... and it is definitely less expensive. The added bonus is now our P.E. classes are 1)hiking and orienteering -aka- gathering kindling, and 2)ergonomic cardiovascular upper body workout with emphasis on core muscle training -aka- using the large splitting maul to split the wood without straining back muscles or holding your breath to heave the giant thing over the shoulder..... we will be warm AND in shape come spring....LOL

- We've been doing our best to doctor up and take care of Garfield, our beautiful tiger striped short haired persian kitty who I love because he kills snakes for me. He was attacked by several dogs while Mom and Corey were here and has a huge chunk taken out of his leg, another out of his head and jaw, and tore the pads off of his feet in the fight for his life. He seems to be healing up very well but we are still watching for infection and absecesses and trying to keep his wounds clean. Have you ever tried holding onto a squirming kitty while putting antibiotic ointment on them? It's kind of like trying to catch a greased pig only with claws! {i love my kitty who eats the snakes and keeps me from losing it in the garden... i would rather feed a kitty and keep him well than see a snake!}

- We enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner at our Pastor's home with some of the families from our church. There was A LOT of PIE!!! and they were all good! The food and fellowship were wonderful and as always since the Lord brought us here we were thankful for the church family He has given us and that He has loved us and provided for us well beyond what we could even have thought to ask for!

-Troy is still praying and seeking the Lord about his job. His current employer has already waffled on the pay rate that Troy was promised *in writing* when he was hired, the supposedly wonderful benefit package (which was supposed to give us health insurance) turns out to cost $999 *PER MONTH* or almost exactly half of what he makes, and for the past several weeks there have been threats to cut Troy's pay in half because they do not have the need for a welder as soon as the current project is finished and they do not want to pay what a welder is paid when they can pay someone else half of that to do the other work. {sigh} The Lord knows our needs and has been so faithful to provide for us that we don't dare try to plan or think our way through it all so we just keep on praying.

-In an effort to make the ends meet and try to provide the funds for medical expenses that just can't be put off any longer we have gone back to something we haven't done since the kids were babies. We are rehabilitating neglected rental properties. Troy is doing the flooring work and plumbing and repairs while the kids and I clean some of the most disgusting carpets, appliances and cabinets and closets and walls I have seen in a long long long time.

We have a lot of fun working together and the kids are so excited that at the end of these long days they can see huge accomplishments. I've been pretty impressed with how hard the kids have worked too.... and with absolutely NO complaining or whining or arguing either! I was trying to fall asleep the other night and the boys kept on talking back and forth about work...
J "can you believe that big ink stain came out?"
C "nope.... did you see how the nasty gum and wax came out, I never thought about using an iron"
J "I thought that carpet was a really dark gray colored carpet but it's lighter than your doves are!"
C " You did a good job on that stain in the hallway, I can't believe you got that out"
J "thanks, you did really good on that gum and mom said you really did that little room all by yourself that's awesome"
C "Did you see how clean Fred got that kitchen!"
T "GO TO SLEEP! We have to go do this again tomorrow!"

It's hard on Troy to go to work so early for his other job and then we don't get home from the other stuff until sometimes 10 at night or later. My poor hunk O honey is so tired, but he's holding up fairly well. We should be finished with the first home by the end of this week and the man who owns the place seems really excited about what we've done. I hope we don't have to wait long for payment, sometimes property owners only pay out on a certain day of the month and I would hate to have to wait a long time (see how impatient I am...LOL). At any rate, he says he has a lot more work for us, so it looks like we will have plenty to do this winter.

- We are feeding the bees nearly every day now. All 3 hives are showing plenty of activity which is a huge relief since we were so worried about Taeler's hive being on the weak side. There is still a long way to go before we get another nectar flow though. We're praying for a mild winter, an early bloom season, no late freezes, and the end of the drought we've been in.... and LOTS more purple honey!! The kids have already had a man talk to them about the possibility of renting their hives for pollination in his watermelon fields this year... talk about excited, the kids never dreamed that they would be getting requests already. The same fella asked the boys if they would be interested in working for him some this summer during the harvest too, and me and Fred may help out with the markets if things work out that way.

- The kids have been dealing with their first business "disaster" lately. They had been working really hard to raise a flock of Black Australorp chickens and a flock of Dominique chickens that they invested their own money in buying, feeding, housing etc. The kids worked and saved for a long time to buy those chickens and to take care of them and they had over $300 invested in them. They had a total of 52 chickens who were extremely healthy, gorgeous examples of breeding stock. The dominiques were due to start laying in about 4 weeks and were going to be ready for sale of chicks in 7. The Austrlorps were only about 4 weeks behind that but were much more expensive chickens. Now they have 6 Dominiques left alive but we're not sure if any of them are hens, and there are 2 of the australorps living but neither of them are roosters!

Saturday night we came home really late from work and before I knew what was going on Jared had jumped out of the car while it was still moving screaming his head off. I hurried up and got out and he was running down the road screaming and crying and Troy pulled in right behind me and started yelling too. Finally my eyes adjusted and I saw what they had seen already.... bloody, shredded little black chicken bits all over the yard and dogs running down the road.

I walked around the yard with Troy to try to figure out what had happened, the best we can figure out is that the dogs dug into the little chicken house and killed half a dozen of the Australorps in the house. Some of the chickens escaped by going out the hole the dogs came in and some flew through a small opening a few feet up the side of the house where it looks like the dogs may have jumped against the side or something and broke it. The chickens who tried to escape were attacked by other dogs who were outside the house.

We picked up dead chickens and chicken pieces that were scattered over the entire length of our property and then spent hours walking around in the woods and all over the place freezing with flashlights trying to find the rest of the chickens! After midnight sometime we ended up with 7 that couldn't be found at all, but we did find 2 alive. One was hiding between the beehives and one was sitting in the woods injured... we aren't sure if the injured chicken will ever be totally healed up or not, her wing is a mess but she seems happy enough with her sister and maybe she will at least give us some eggs we can eat.

The very next day Troy and Jared went to talk to the man who owns the dogs. He has had a literal pack of dogs that has caused most of the neighbors problems of one kind or the other for months now but he just refuses to do anything with the dogs. He will not vaccinate them for rabies, get them spayed or neutered or keep them confined to his own property. Troy and Jared talked with him and he promised to lock the dogs up and told Troy to tell him how much he owes the kids for the chickens. The kids had committed themselves to praying about what to ask the man to compensate them for their loses and we all talked about the importance of guarding our testimonies by not giving into emotion and getting angry with this man or engaging in any unproductive conversation or argument. We locked up the Dominiques and started making plans to build them a better fence and such as soon as we got a break from the extra work and had the time to stay at home and work on it, and we made sure the pregnant rabbits were as far away from the noise as we could get them hoping that none of them would deliver early or freak out and eat their babies.

So on Monday we are woke up to the sound of a car horn just blaring in front of the house. I made Jared go out and see what was going on while I dressed. Our nice neighbor fella that the kids work for sometimes came to get us because he saw one of the dogs running down the road with a chicken in it's mouth. We quickly ran around to the back of the house and sure enough the dogs had taken the Dominique's house apart and killed most of them too. Some that we found were alive but too injured to stay that way and some were just gone to wherever the dogs carried them off to.

We were still walking around trying to find all of the chickens and I kept hearing our nice neighbor man yelling, he was on the phone yelling at the animal control people he had been calling for 2 months about these dogs. I kept on trying to help the kids get this mess cleaned up and find the chickens and pretty soon I hear yelling again and look to see the man who owns the dogs and the neighbor man yelling at each other with Jared standing in between them being fought over! As I walked over to retrieve my son I couldn't help just praying and asking the Lord to keep me from doing anything I would regret (those who know me well also know the struggles I've had with my temper).

I sent Jared to help the other kids and quickly told the men that they needed to keep their arguing away from my children please... we just have had more than enough going on and didn't need the extra stress. The man who owns the dogs just launched off on a rant about how he was out of cigarettes and how he didn't appreciate getting woke up so early in the morning and on and on he went! I told that man just a nicely as anyone could that since he had things he needed to do (like we didn't ... sheesh) that he could just go take care of that and we would tend to the mess the dogs made. It had to be the Lord who made those words sound as nice as they did because in my head I was screaming in the guys face telling him all about his selfish, inconsiderate, cold hearted, ignorant self all with a few well timed physical prompts to encourage his participation in the conversation.... also known as picking a fight.

As soon as the owner left our neighbor calmed down and went right back to his sweet self... he's a man that my entire family has enjoyed knowing and usually a real hoot to visit with but he was so angry over the kid's chickens that I thought he might have a stroke! He kept shaking and yelling and turning purple in the face while the owner was here and I don't know what we would have done if something had happened to our nice neighbor on top of everything else. I talked with the nice neighbor for awhile trying to calm him down which was just another act of God's grace because in my head I was still just venting my own anger and frustration that twice in 3 days time my kids were being forced to deal with the death of animals they had raised from the time they were 1 day old, to pick up and dispose of the investment of their life's savings and watch everything they had worked so hard for in the past months get tossed into a hole in the ground.

Finally the nice neighbor decided he needed breakfast and he left too.... which finally left me the time to call Troy. Somehow during that conversation the Lord helped me to speak in calm tones and encouraging and calming language (instead of my old yelling and threating violence) so that Troy wasn't overly upset or angry and his testimony was guarded while he was at work. As I was getting ready to get off the phone with Troy the owner pulls up to the side of the yard and just stared at us until I went to talk with him... he offered to give us some of his fence wire that he said he doesn't need and told me how he just couldn't bring himself to spay his dog because he thought it was mean to do that and how he thinks it's mean to chain up a dog and on and on.

Again, the Lord was faithful to answer my prayer for His help and I just smiled and told the man thank you for offering the fence wire that I would tell Troy he offered it, then I offered him some of the super strong and tall as I am fence wire that Troy brought home from the job site... all 300 feet of it and the boys to help install it so his dogs would have a nice big yard to run in. Even when the man asked me what I thought of it all I never once was able to give in to the urge to just get mean and let the mama bear with claws side of me come out!!

I did tell him that the dogs needed to be vaccinated for rabies because not only was it the law but that if my kids had been exposed to rabies and needed to have the more than $2000 per kid series of shots I didn't think I would be able to maintain any kind of decent composure and that his dogs didn't have to bite the kids to expose them since it's tranferred by saliva as well. And I did tell him that the kids had just lost their entire investment that they had worked so hard for when he asked me what the kid's had tied up in the chickens I told him the full amount... he raised an eyebrow so I also told him that they had the receipts as well since they were tracking the costs for a business math project for school. But not one word passed my lips to him that was harsh or ugly or spoken with anger!!! The guy finally just asked me to tell Troy to call him and left..... thankfully.

Nearly the entire rest of the day was spent dealing with neighbors and animal control officers and county commissioners and so on but through all of it I didn't lose my temper or speak harshly or anything! My poor sweet tired out Hunk 'O Honey is still amazed to the point of tears that I didn't do anything.... not one thing I feel regret for. I stood amazed all day long as the Lord calmed the storms around me and spoke peace to the ones that raged on inside of me as well, and ended the day thanking Him for doing it all and being thankful that I can even call on Him to do anything for me knowing how undeserving of it I am.

God was so good and so faithful to me in answering our prayers for peace and to help us guard our testimonies as we dealt with all of that!! We are praying that He will continue to do so as we try to bring the whole thing to a state of final resolution without making enemies of our neighbors... we have one neighbor pitching a fit for us to sue the other one and the other one is angry because now most of his dogs were taken away and he will be facing some criminal charges for not vaccinating his dogs, allowing them to run at large during the night and so on.

We were talking about the contrast in our lives between now and before we got saved and gave our lives and the running of our home to the Lord. Before I would have committed several assaults during the course of this all and set some terrible examples for my children that would probably have scarred them for life not to mention really doing damage to our families finances because bail ain't cheap and neither are lawyers and if all else had failed me I would have taken out all that anger and frustration on my husband instead of being his helpmeet the way that I should. Now we have peace that in some way whatever is lost will be restored to our family in whatever way the Lord sees fit and though I still feel the waves of anger and those ugly thoughts still run through my mind I can take those things and make them captive to the power of the Lord in my life! AMAZING GRACE....

Well, if you're still even here after all my long rambling you know I surely have things to do but I had promised to catch up. Believe it or not this is only the highlights of all that's been keeping us busy. We are getting ready for REVIVAL at our church and praying and asking the Lord to have HIS perfect will in the meeting. Take care everyone!

I'm terrible

2007-11-28T12:47:00.000-05:00

I know I am just awful for going so long without posting, I am trying to do better but things are really just crazy busy around here. The last few weeks have heralded the now infamous visit from my mom and baby brother, our family trying very hard to pick up some extra work to help make those ends meet, the new and constant effort to keep enough wood cut/split/stacked to keep the house warm, the birth of another litter of bunnies with a few more litters due soon, a last ditch desperate effort to keep the garden producing despite the cold, and the most recent series of disasters that cost the kids nearly ALL of their investment in the 2 rare breeds of chicks they were trying so hard to raise with their own money and effort. Please pardon the run on sentence, I trust that most of you can make some sort of sense out of it anyway.

I will try to post more later on but for right now that little tidbit is all I really have time for, the kids and I have got errands to run, supper to prepare, chores to do, and evening service at church to get ready for. I hope you are all having a wonderful and blessed week and will be patient with me for just a bit longer!!

Wow, what an awesome help!

2007-11-06T17:18:00.000-05:00

One of my sweet little old lady friends back home knew I was having a hard time with some things lately and sent me this list to encourage me and to help me "keep counsel with myself". Her advice was to simply look myself in the mirror each day and ask myself the same 22 questions that John Wesley's Holy club used in their devotions. This same sweet lady was such a blessing to me years ago when it seemed like life was running away with me and I just couldn't keep up with it all, it was then that she taught me the principal of keeping counsel with yourself as a means of setting apart time every day even if only just a minute or two to really focus on what you need to do to be the best you can for the Lord and for your family. Friends like her are definitely precious blessings from the Lord! Anyway, here is the list for anyone who may be interested.

1. Am I consciously or unconsciously creating the impression that I am better than I really am? In other words, am I a hypocrite?

2. Am I honest in all my acts and words, or do I exaggerate?

3. Do I confidentially pass on to another what was told to me in confidence?

4. Can I be trusted?

5. Am I a slave to dress, friends, work, or habits?

6. Am I self-conscious, self-pitying, or self-justifying?

7. Did the Bible live in me today?

8. Do I give it time to speak to me everyday?

9. Am I enjoying prayer?

10. When did I last speak to someone else about my faith?

11. Do I pray about the money I spend?

12. Do I get to bed on time and get up on time?

13. Do I disobey God in anything?

14. Do I insist upon doing something about which my conscience is uneasy?

15. Am I defeated in any part of my life?

16. Am I jealous, impure, critical, irritable, touchy, or distrustful?

17. How do I spend my spare time?

18. Am I proud?

19. Do I thank God that I am not as other people, especially as the Pharisees who despised the publican?

20. Is there anyone whom I fear, dislike, disown, criticize, hold a resentment toward or disregard? If so, what am I doing about it?

21. Do I grumble or complain constantly?

22. Is Christ real to me?

I imagine that most people are already familiar with this list and all but I put it here as both another reminder to myself and also just because I thought it was one of those things that was just too helpful not to be shared.

always running behind

2007-10-31T14:03:00.000-04:00

I know I haven't posted in forever.... haven't y'all figured out yet that I'm always behind and so far behind that I'll spend the rest of my life trying to get caught up! There have been busy spells since I last posted during one of those we were able to be in several revival meetings and wonderful fellowship meetings at other churches in our area and it was such a tremendous blessing just to go in and fellowship with the Lord's people and pull up a seat and just feast on His word! It made for a couple of super busy weeks where things at home got farther behind but it was well worth it.

We're busy now trying to get ready for winter. With a few nights down in the 30's and no oil to run the furnace with we are doing everything we can to try and make it easier to stay warm in this house. I got a big roll of plastic and for the first time since the kids were babies we are going "hillbilly" and putting plastic on the windows. Troy and the boys have been looking on the back lot for trees that we can cull out and use for firewood too. I'm praying for a warmer than average winter, the news keeps on reporting that heating oil is going to be at an all time high.... so NOT what we needed to hear!

In our efforts to get ready for winter we are also trying to get everything ready for all the critters to stay as warm and healthy as possible through the cold months. The chickens need another house built, the bunnies need a couple of cages put up and cloth wrapped over the sides and back to block the wind and the bees needed a better spot to be in where they could get more light. Well, we are working on the chicken shelter and the bunnies.

This morning we ran out to try to move the bees and almost panicked over how crabby those bees were! I've never seen the bees react to us the way they did today..... even now they are still angrily buzzing all around the house as if they are out there just daring us to try to come outside! Everyone but me got stung, Taeler got several stings and Jared got one on his ear.... Caleb thought he was in the clear until he went out to water the chickens and got stung on the chin and one time in his hair. I hope I don't get stung!!! The Lord has been so sweet to allow me to go this long with no stings and it has truly been an answer to prayers.... bee stings make me sick and with the NCS a sting could send me into a period of fainting spells and illness that I just really don't want to deal with.

The other news in our family is that my mom is coming to visit! We have been feverishly cleaning and sorting and de-cluttering the house to try to make it company ready. Secretly I've been in terrible fear that mom will show up and be so disgusted by my house that she refuses to stay. My baby brother is also coming and possibly my oldest son too. I'm so excited! I haven't seen my family in almost 3 years so this is great news.

Anyway, I'm off to get back to work. Hopefully I'll get more of a chance to post soon.

How Sweet!

2007-10-10T13:33:00.000-04:00

The Lord is so wonderfully sweet to me! I've been so homesick for my friends and family but especially for my special group of friends that me and the hunk o' honey loving call "The Little Old Lady Brigade". I have missed these ladies and so many times over the last few years I've even been reduced to tears of longing for those Tuesday morning bible study meetings and the monthly prayer meetings that we had. I've managed to stay in touch with all of these sweet women though and today I received one of the sweetest letters I've ever gotten in my life from my dear friends telling me that they miss me too.

For those of you who don't already know the Little Old Lady Brigade is the group of women from our old church back home ..... and no, they don't mind me calling them that name because they aren't ashamed of their age. In our old church there were only a few families who weren't in their "senior" years and I quickly found it to be a real blessing that the Lord worked it out that way. I was fortunate to benefit from the wisdom and experience of those sweet older ladies and still I often crave the fellowship that we all had together over God's word and in prayer. We got together one morning a week for bible study and fellowship and it was a true blessing to be able to just gather together that way and words just can't describe how much I miss having that time of fellowship in my life now. We also gathered one evening a month for a ladies prayer meeting that was all the ladies of the church, the ladies who wanted to and who lived closer together like me and Mrs. Willie would often grab a few minutes of time here and there to pray together as well. These meetings were not for socializing or visiting but were time set apart for the women to gather and study and pray. I learned so much during those times and during some of the most difficult times of my life it was those meetings and the support of those ladies that really made the difference in how I weathered the storms.

I have to say too that I never have met a group of people who were so willing to commit themselves to service! Every month the ladies took on a new service project. As we would near the holiday season the monthly projects were usually making gifts or quilts or packages to send to our missionary families. Other projects were love baskets to be taken to shut ins or the nursing home residents or to needy families. We often had work days at the church too and sometimes those would turn out to be the most fun days of all. I was always amazed at the amount of work the ladies were able to do and how much fun we had doing it together.

We had other things for the ladies too that the Little Old Lady Brigade got started like trading meals day. We would all cook and freeze three different meals and three different desserts and then get together and trade them. It was a really great way to share not only our favorite recipes but to make sure that there were always meals ready in the freezer for those days when time ran short. It was so simple to do and a lot of fun too. We had clothing swaps, book swaps, and even dishes swaps for the ladies to participate in too. There were crafting days, sewing days, cleaning days and trade a chore days (my favorite) for anyone who wanted to participate. Those ladies may have been farther on in years than I was but they had no tolerance for laziness or things that were frivolous wastes of time (I'll never forget the shopping lecture).

Well, that's enough rambling from me for now. I was just tickled to bits that the ladies thought of me and it made me miss them so much all over again!

Already?!!

2007-10-09T12:57:00.000-04:00

It just doesn't seem right! It's bad enough that I'm now a full head shorter than my little preacher boy but now he is less than a week away from being a real honest to goodness {gasp, sputter, sigh} *TEENAGER*! They just grow way too fast to suit me, it seems like yesterday he was born and seemed so small and helpless, now on my weaker days he holds me up with strong arms while we do the chores together. It seems like just yesterday that I couldn't get him to eat hardly anything and worried that he would be skinny and sickly from poor nutrition, but now I can't fill him up and he eats constantly, and he is strong and healthy too. It seems like just yesterday that he just couldn't quite get the hang of reading and now I can't keep him from reading everything he can get his hands on. It seems like just yesterday that he was 3 years old and still had not said one single word and I was terrified that he would not be able to speak for some reason. It seems like just yesterday that I was a freshly saved 24 year old girl expecting baby number 3 and begging the Saviour I had only begun to trust to please save this child that was growing inside me and use him for HIS glory.

I get overwhelmed when I think of the blessings my children are to me. They don't get into trouble or give me any grief about their schooling and most importantly they all have a heart for the Lord. Just last night they all sat with me and their Daddy in the livingroom as a brother in the Lord was telling us how he desires to see his own children begin to really grow in the Lord and to seek Him out on their own.... what a blessing when my little preacher boy started testifying about how the Lord became real in his own life and how that is what drove him to begin seeking the Lord for himself and stop trying to live off of the faith of the people around him. It's a true blessing that I just can never find the words for that I am able to hear my son give glory to God in little ways and big ways on a day to day basis!

I'm even beginning to appreciate the fact that the preacher boy was called to preach. Believe me, I know how awful it sounds but I did not want any of my boys to be preachers and did all that I could to discourage any such thoughts. It's not that I have anything against preachers or that I think poorly of the good men who are called of God to preach his word in any way...... it's just that all these years I've raised these sons *I've* had my own set of plans for them and how they should grow up and live life. Petty of me huh. I had always encouraged the boys to pursue things that interested them and learn as much as possible about those things so that later on their lives they would be fit to make a decent living for their families doing something that they loved.

Jared had always said that he wanted to go to a good college and study fire science and criminal justice and become a police officer and work in the fire service too and gradually work his way up to arson investigation. I was so proud of him for having such a good plan and for knowing what it would take to fulfill that set of goals and I did all I could to encourage him to continue to pursue that course ..... all the way up until the night he came stumbling down the hallway with tears running down his little cheeks and told us that the Lord had been speaking to him and that he had been ignoring what was being said but that he just couldn't do that anymore because he had to preach and try to reach folks for Jesus. Me being the hardheaded idiot that I was at the time told him to stop crying and go back to bed that I didn't want to hear such nonsense and how in the world did he think he could preach when he was too shy to even say the pledge of alliegence in front of the people in our family back home. Bless his heart, all he would say is "I love you momma but the Lord told me to preach".... he told his Daddy and they talked to our Pastor and that was the end of that. But now here we are two years later and I couldn't appreciate my son any more than I do now and I have been so blessed to see the Lord use him and to watch him grow in the Lord and to begin to mature a bit in his preaching. There are lots of things in my life that I regret but not many of them more than the way I reacted when the Lord called Jared to preach.

I wonder now and then what the Lord has planned for my boy. I confess that I used to worry about it.... you know what his life will be like in a world that hates preachers who stick by the old ways and follow the true word of God and who do their best to live out what they believe. I'm so glad that our Lord is faithful to take care of his own and that when those times come on me and I wonder or worry that in some way whether it's something small or something big the Lord will show me that he will take care of the boy who is really only mine for a little while but is HIS for eternity. What an awesome and fearsome thought, that me and my hunk o' honey are in charge of raising this young man up but that he truly belongs to the Lord and not us at all! The years have flown by and I know that I probably haven't got many left to have this boy with me all the time. That's just enough all by itself to make this old tired mama's heart break a little bit every day but the blessing of who this boy is becoming more than makes up for the pain of watching him grow a step farther from me everyday!

There ya go Mrs. Willie, all the stuff I can't say without crying about our boy that we prayed over so many times in your livingroom floor on that old prayer rug! God is faithful, and He heard every word we said! HE grew our boy up strong and tall and sweet natured just like you would always ask, and HE grew him up filled with love and joy and a desire to serve HIM just like we asked! Ain't God Good!!!! Let's keep on praying and seeking God for all our young ones.

And that's enough babbling for me today..... I've got a birthday meal to plan.

Failure to thrive

2007-09-11T11:42:00.000-04:00

This must be my week for very long very late night phone conversations! Actually those phone calls are such sweet answers to prayers I've made, it's been a true blessing to talk to and visit with those people that I miss so much back home! Why late at night you ask ..... well, because we all have lots of kids and/or responsibilities that keep us running and frazzled all day long everyday plus church, work, and all of the other day to day stuff that causes us to be so out of touch from time to time with folks we love and don't live near.

My heart has been so very very heavy for such a long time because I get so homesick for my "people". I miss my family and my friends something terrible! I haven't seen them in nearly 2 1/2 years now, not for a vacation or a holiday or even for those once in a lifetime very special events that I never in a million years would have thought I would miss. As I was telling my brother last night, I've missed my son's high school graduation, my daughter giving birth to both of my grand-daughters, my youngest brother's high school graduation and leaving home, all of my family's regular holiday gatherings and celebrations etc along with so many other major events and it's just hard sometimes to be so far away.... and it hurts. But the Lord has been so good to me to put me on the hearts of those who I love and to give me the time to just sit back and relax and enjoy a good long visit on the phone with several of them!

Anyway, after I finally got off the phone and most of the night last night as I talked to the Lord about all that is weighing on me lately something came to mind and it just kind of got stuck there so I thought I would sort of write/ramble about it here for a bit to get it out of my head.

When I was in nursing school (seems like a lifetime ago now) in our pediatrics units we learned about a condition found in little babies and sometimes young children that they called Failure to Thrive. It's when a child just sort of whithers away with no obvious cause, they aren't necessarily cranky kids or whiny, they just stop wanting to grow it seems. Slowly that not growing turns into a sort of shrinking, they lose weight, they become listless ... sometimes even too listless to cry when they have a need or are in pain.

Right before your eyes that little person just quietly and slowly dies, a bit at a time and almost silently. During that most crucial time of life when normally they would grow more than at any other time of life period, a child with failure to thrive will lose weight instead of the normal double or tripling of their birth weight, eventually their height (stature) is affected, they will in time become disinterested in their surroundings, miss developmental milestones like sitting walking talking etc, possibly they become irritable and withdrawn and begin to develop a dislike of contact with other people.

Sometimes there is a medical condition at the root of the problem but frequently the parents or caregivers of the child are the cause of the problem. An instructor told us (as we stood in the pediatric ICU with a baby who was dying) that in children with failure to thrive due to medical conditions they will quickly begin to improve with treatment, but that the most persistent cases of failure to thrive were considered nearly untreatable. The instructor said that in the most severe and persistent cases the problems are caused by the parents, sometimes they abuse the child or neglect to care for the child properly, sometimes the parents suffer from mental illnesses and that affects the child's health. But, we were told, many times the root of the problem was simply that the family situation was just too chaotic for the baby to receive proper feeding and nurturing, the lack of routine blunted the child's appetite, and inadequate parenting exacerbated the decline in the child's health overall along with their emotional development.

In short the instructor told us that babies just KNOW when they are loved and that those babies will fight to get well. The worst cases, the ones that just never got well were the little ones who simply didn't receive enough love, children who simply felt no strong ties or bonds with anyone who cared about them. Isn't it amazing that such tiny and young little people instinctively know when they aren't loved!

As I talked with the Lord last night and this thought was put in my mind it began to sink into my sleep deprived brain that if a very young child has that instinct and that just the knowledge at whatever level of their awareness is enough to kill them, what must it do to the heart of a lost and dying sinner to hear over and over that Jesus loves them yet never truly see His love manifested around them? What must it do to the heart of those very young babes in Christ to instinctively know that the people in the family of God secretly (or not) reject them? What must it do to that hurting brother or sister in the Lord to feel isolated from the rest of the flock? What must it do to the soul of the wounded believer who is terrified to trust the brethren enough to ask for prayer or help? I could go on for a really long time but I think you get the point.

I believe that the failure to thrive phenomena is alive and well in our churches today, not only do I believe it but I know that I have seen it. I have seen first hand fresh young newly saved faces turned into withered and slumped shouldered figures wandering farther and farther away from the house of the Lord fleeing the pain of rejection and criticism. I have seen first hand lost sinners declare that they want nothing to do with a God whose people are filled with such venom and mean-ness. I have seen time and again people who were truly seeking salvation and wanted nothing more than to see one true Christian to help them believe that they truly do exist. And I believe that just as many times it's the parents and caregivers who cause failure to thrive in children, it is the sister who speaks in scorn and condemnation or the brother who can't find the balance between hating the sin and loving the sinner, it is the lack of compassion and love for one another that is causing failure to thrive in our churches.

People we have to do something different, we have got to learn to reach out a hand to those who are drowning in the filth of the world and show them the love of Christ. Sinners don't need to see another fake Christian full of well memorized platitudes and simple one line quick responses, they need to see that the God we serve loved us enough to make us able to love them! I realize that it's tough but we cannot let the need continue to go unmet. Just like to save a child suffering from failure to thrive you have to be willing to give that child all the love and attention and affection they need all the time and work to build their trust we have got to work to show the lost that there is such a thing as love and compassion and that grace and mercy are more than just pretty words.

Ready?

2007-09-10T14:39:00.001-04:00

My friend Mindy sent me the link to this video and I just had to share it here. I know that for some it is way over the top, and it isn't my aim or intention to offend anyone. The point of the video is so well stated at the end though. We should be willing to die to self and to die for Jesus if necessary. So many of us though live our lives from day to day watching folks like the "bad guy" in the video walk on by on their way to hell for eternity and we are unwilling to tell them about Jesus. The reasons are as many and as varied as we are individual but if were are really ready to die for Jesus, or to die to self, wouldn't we be more able to set aside the silly differences that we have within the brethren? Wouldn't we be more able to withstand the "embarrasment" of telling a stranger about a Saviour who loves them? This video really made us just take a minute and think about so much.... so are you ready?

Striking a balance

2007-09-10T09:47:00.000-04:00

I know, I've been absent again. It's been busy around here for quite awhile. Truth be told I prefer to be busy, not busy as in running around being away from the home that the Lord has blessed me with but busy as in taking care of the abundant blessings that the Lord has provided. It's so easy sometimes when we get busy with our homes and children and taking care of our husbands to see those things as simply duties or even sometimes as burdens, but in truth they are blessings and I am truly blessed abundantly.

The real challenge for me and so many of my friends back home that I talk to is trying to get a sense of balance in how life is lived, from the daily chores to raising up our children the struggle is to find that fine line of balance between simply doing what must be done and living the life that we should be living. Forgive me while I ramble, late night talks with my friend Mindy generally cause lots of brain stirring. Last night one of the things we talked about how in some homes the focus is so much on discipline and not at all on the love of our Saviour, to the point that the children see nothing but a God of wrath to fear rather than a God who loved us all so much that He gave His own son.

It breaks my heart to hear people refer to their children as monsters or to see folks treat children as burdens, whether or not the words are ever said in the ear shot of that child, he/she is well aware of the feelings generated toward them.... how unfair for that child. For any child, the way that they see their parents is the same way that they will see the Lord. If they have an unbalanced view of authority or criticism in their relationship with their parents often that unbalanced view will carry over into their relationship with the Lord. How scary a thought, that my kids will have a relationship with the Lord (at least in their young years) that is similar to their relationship with me. If they only respond to me because it's been drilled into their heads under threat of punishment that may be the only link they see between them and Jesus, the threat of punishment. It's so sad to me to think that some people would only respond to the Lord because they fear punishment! But there is a good example of one of the kinds of balance that Mindy and I were talking about.

We talked too about striking a balance in your work, rest and recreation. Back home there are lots of Amish communities and you see children as young as 2 who get up and work all day right alongside their parents with little to no time for play or to rest other than the rest that their young bodies MUST have. Some of the farm families back home are run similarly, with lots of kids helping out on the farm the chores go faster I'm sure. Then we moved out here and so many kids have no chores at all and view work as something that only parents have to do. Now I admit that at different times I've been on both sides of this with my kids. I believe that now we have a pretty decent balance in this area. Mindy was telling me about one of her neighbors who literally doesn't do any of the work around her house other than to prepare meals, the rest of the house chores including all of the duties of caring for younger siblings is left to the children (ages 14 months to 12 years).

*Personally I think that's outrageous, I believe it is the parents responsibility to train the children by working alongside them and leading by example, not sitting at the computer or reading a book, or going out shopping or "running errands" while children go from chore to chore training the younger children as they go. That's just my opinion by the way, but I will add that the Lord commanded the parents to teach and train their children, not to teach and train one of two of their children and then live a life of relative leisure that the children will resent them for (either silently in obedience out of fear of punishment or in outright rebellion misbehaving every time they are out of sight) while those first few kids raise the rest of the family brood dutifully. My kids all work, and they work hard, but we work together as a family and each pull our fair share and along the way we have each learned from the others strengths and weaknesses. Troy and I wanted our kids to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we will not require from them any more or any less than what we require from ourselves and we have found that in return the kids are much more respectful of our authority than they were before. We wanted to gain respect without getting resentment and so far we have a healthy and strong relationship with all of our kids.*

Me and Mindy talked about balance in our witness too. I was so thankful for a song that some of our ladies sang in last nights service! I was about showing the world the love of Christ and how impossible it is to do that if you never touch those who are lost. I don't necessarily mean physically touching them but if you are a stone wall of judgement and critical condemnation with an attitude or expression of such distaste and lacking compassion for the sinner you are trying to reach then you are simply another one of "those Christians" who have so successfully shut out the very people that Jesus has commanded us to reach. It's probably the most difficult balance to reach, to be able to love the sinner enough to show them the light and the love of Jesus without leaving them feeling as though you have never met the God who loved you so much in your own filthy lost and sinful condition that he gave His own son's blood for your salvation!

I confessed to Mindy that I have really struggled with that so much myself. I see so many kids the ages of my own running around half dressed with disrespectful attitudes and trashy friends and habits, the 'mommy bear with claws' part of me wants to flog those kids to keep them far away from my own children but the woman who has been cleansed by the blood of Jesus in me cries out for the Holy Spirit to speak to the hearts of those poor lost kids and to help me to love them despite their appearances and rough talk.

How easy it is for the flesh to look at someone who is covered in their sin and call out "hey, you're dirty" instead of realizing that the dirt is also in their eyes preventing them from being able to see how dirty they really are, how easy to sit from our clean little perch on the tower of high and mighty and remember that once we were just as dirty and disgusting as they are now. Maybe some folks think that by behaving in such a critical way they cast enough shadow over their current imperfections as to hide those flaws that remain.

I hate remembering where I was when Jesus found me and took me in, but at the same time I have to remember not only where I was but how I was reached. I wasn't reached with a condemning look or a scornful frown, those would only have served to keep me running away from the very one who could save me. What got my attention and made me stop running was the faithful witness who showed me the joy they have in the Love of the Lord, that person who took the time out of their busy life to care about me enough to be real despite who and what I was and where I was at that drew me to salvation. I have to remember because remembering makes me think of how much I should care for those who need what I have already been given instead of taking for granted what I have and using it as an excuse to look down my nose at someone so desperately in need. I have to remember because once upon a time I was one of those aimlessly wandering, half dressed, disrespectful, mean mouthed, lying, thieving, conniving, trashy kids too ....... and all I needed was to find the love of Jesus to fill that void that was trying to fill up with the lusts of my flesh and the false love that the world wraps up so prettily.

After all of that talking I was telling Mindy about a preaching tape that I had been listening to not that long ago. One of our young preachers at church (who also happens to be the kids' Sunday School teacher) was preaching and he said something that really stood out to me. He was saying that we really needed to be careful of what we say, especially in front of our children and especially about visitors to our church and about other people in our church (that's not all he said but I'm not into transcribing sermons). He was saying that as parents we are molding how our children will witness, how they will live for the Lord and serve in the local church.... he made the point that our kids will take to heart what we say so when a visitor who is lost and full of the world walks through the doors of our church do the kids hear "oh my... did you see what they were wearing, how awful, blah blah blah" or did the kids hear us welcome that person into the Lord's house and hear us treat that person with all the compassion that we should have for the lost? He was also saying that we have to carefully guard what we say about our Pastor and the other people in the church for the same reason.... our kids will repeat what we say and do in their own lives.... there again, we train them by example, if the kids see us criticizing sister so an so for what she wears or what she says or who she hangs out with how on earth can that child be protected from then growing their very own critical spirit?.... Anyway, it was a good preaching tape and not just that particular preacher but that part was applicable to the rest of what I'm saying in this post.

Mindy and I were talking about that tape because we were also talking about balancing how you care for your church family. I was relating to her a struggle that I'm having (which I won't go into here for obvious reasons) in coping with a few things in that vein. I'll just say that folks should be more careful what they say about people in their churches, it's amazing how easily folks get hurt by gossip or judgemental statements or criticisms that get tossed around.Sometimes even just a critical expression or questioning statement is all it takes to upset someone else on the behalf of the person being criticized! Mindy's church has lost several families recently because an ugly remark was passed about one of the ladies there and after several months it got back to the lady who the remark was made about. That lady didn't leave the church but several families who were very upset by the way that lady was treated did leave. I won't go into whether or not I think any of what actually happened is right or wrong but people, please watch what you say, be very careful about criticizing how someone else chooses to live their life. You don't know what the whole story is in someone else's life and are not fit to judge!

We talked lots about striking a balance in our finances too. Troy and I are both trying so hard to recover from years and years of trying to climb out of debt and I'll tell you that I know first hand how hard it is to make those dollars stretch as far as they need to sometimes. Thankfully we have nearly paid off ALL of the debt we carried, all that we have left are 2 very small credit accounts and our student loans (which will be a long time in repayment). It isn't easy to scrimp and pinch and always feel like you are struggling and behind, especially with kids because you always want to do more for them or do better for them, but it is very worth doing to teach them to manage their money properly while they are young.

Troy and I picked up a couple of Larry Burkett's money management books at a thrift store and we will use them in our family bible study time with the kids to teach them the importance of managing our money and the principles of stewardship. Honestly I get kind of mad sometimes when I see people complain about not having enough money and then demonstrate truly poor stewardship of their finances. Just to be clear, I realize that there is a huge difference between poor stewardship and a family going through a hard time financially! Troy and I have struggled so long over poor financial decisions that we made when were very young, very lost and very untaught about money and budgeting and such thing so we want to do all we can now to make sure that our kids understand how important it is to have money in the proper perspective in their lives now. Hopefully with some proper instruction and lots of prayer the kids will learn to balance their finances from the beginning and avoid the trap of chasing the dollar all their lives.

I could go on and on like Mindy and I did on the phone (we hadn't had a chance to talk in quite awhile) but I'm sure you are already bored. I should be able to post more often as the summer draws closed and fall sets in. Things around here will get more into a regular routine and a little less busy as the days get shorter. I'm so thankful for the busy seasons that we've had though. I'm so blessed to have so much to do that is meaningful and not just an empty activity to fill the days and pass the time! Take care everyone, I'll post again soon I hope.

Fred's brand new 20 year old quilt

2007-08-17T13:26:00.001-04:00

Fred is so tickled to finally have it finished! I started working on that quilt nearly 20 years ago as something to do while on bedrest expecting Joshua (who turns 19 next month). I finished the top when Josh was a year old, every single stitch by hand and it's the first thing I ever pieced together from scratch. Jessi's first ever stitches are in that quilt too, she just wanted to help so I let her make a square for it. Originally I was making it for Jessi, that's who picked out the outrageously bright yellow and some of the flaming bright patterns in the quilt. But as she got older her preferences for colors changed and so did her taste in bed clothes and she didn't want it anymore so it got packed away in a box for a long time.

When Troy and I had Fred there were open shelves in our room and I hated the look of them so the quilt top hung over them as a curtain for awhile. Troy decided that he really really didn't like that bright yellow and he never wanted me to finish putting it together for our home so back into the box it went for another long time.

Finally close to Christmas of 2004 I was sorting through boxes of stuff in the attic and Fred saw the quilt top and fell in love with it. She asked me to put it together for her for Christmas that year..... well, life happened that year and ran over me and I just couldn't get it done but I did get a good start on it again. I kept working on it a bit at a time all by hand and was so frustrated with the slow pace of it that I put it up again.

Awhile back I had asked someone how to do machine quilting with a regular old sewing machine. I honestly had no idea it was possible to do that (that's how much of a sewing dummy I am). Finally I just pulled the poor old quilt out again and started on it, it took me less than 5 hours to finish it and bind it. It started out large enough to be oversized on a queen sized bed, but after realizing that I had hand stitched almost half of it with the backing and batting crooked it is now just right for a twin size daybed just like Fred's.

This is not Fred's bed, I just tossed the quilt over the sofa to get a better picture of it. Fred's happy with it so I guess it's not too terrible for a first ever mostly handstitched quilt. I'm just glad that now I can say I finished the whole thing.... and maybe start on another quilt someday. My friend Angela has gotten me hooked on this idea of strip quilting because it's supposed to be faster and even a sewing dummy like me can do it.... though I have my doubts. What you don't see on this one is the back, that's because all of the mistakes are so obvious there .... especially the one where I sewed the front to the back and was too tired to rip out the stitches so I just cut that part of the front off and left it there. Oh well, Fred likes it so that's okay too.

I just wanted to share this picture because I like it. We have always called Caleb "bugs" because somehow or the other he manages to make friends with them all the time. The other day this poor little butterfly would not leave him alone, it kept perching on his shoulder and in his hair and no matter what he was doing it just hung on to him. He decided it was too hot outside for the butterfly and brought it inside with him. He fed it honey off of his finger and gave it water in a thimble and let it sleep in his hat in his bedroom. That little butterfly was a house pet for a couple of days before I made Caleb take it back outside. That's just how things happen around here sometimes.

Well, I'm off of here for now to get some of my work done around the house. I hope everyone has a great weekend!

I HAVE ONE!!!

2007-08-06T17:49:00.000-04:00

A real honest to goodness measured amounts included recipe!!! Actually, I have two of them.... I'm so tickled! Okay, okay, I know I'm making a really big deal of it, but in all honesty I rarely have them. I kind of cook "on the fly" usually and rarely do I bother myself to actually measure things out but I've done it a few times to perfect these two recipes and I love them just like they are now. I'm so happy to finally have actually written down recipes that I thought I would just go ahead and post them on here. I've been meaning to do it for awhile now but being the frog in the frying pan has kept me.... well hoppin' (hahahahaha sorry, couldn't help myself). Anyway, here ya go.

My favorite granola bars
These are sweet but not sugary, in fact there is no sugar added to them! Plus they have yummy good for ya stuff in them too. They don't sound like they would be good at all but they are highly addictive! Don't say I didn't warn you.

1 1/2 cup honey (no it doesn't have to be purple, but mine is!)
1 1/2 cup peanut butter (chunky or smooth, I don't care)
5 cups rolled oats
1 cup raisins
3/4 cup grated carrots
3/4 cup coconut

In a large pan ( used my dutch oven) over low heat melt together the peanut butter and honey then take it off the heat and add everything else. Stir it all together and let it cool until you can comfortably handle it. Press it all firmly and evenly into the bottom of a baking pan ( I used my big cookie sheet/jelly roll pan). Bake for 25-30 minutes at 350 degrees. Taaa Daaaa, you now have the yummiest absolutely healthy food you can make and it's so easy to make that you can write down the instructions and have one of the kids make them and call it school ...... reading comprehension ya know. I know what you're thinking, you're thinking that it can't taste good and have carrots in it, but you never even know they are in there! Go ahead and try it you big chicken.... I double dare ya!

*Notes*
You can make these with almost any ingredients added to the honey, peanut butter and oats. For example, dried cherries instead of raisins, or dried apricots or blueberries. You could also opt for the not quite so healthy version and use chocolate chips instead of dried fruit. I'll save the chocolate for cookies though.

Honey Balls
This is turning into one of our favorite snacks! I like these so much that I just might even start buying an occasional box of corn flakes just so we can keep having them.

1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 cup powdered milk
1 cup crushed cereal ( I used corn flakes, but just about any of it would work)

Mix together the honey and peanut butter til smooth, then gradually stir in the powdered milk. Put it in the fridge because it's lots easier to handle when it's chilled. Butter your hands and then make bunches of little balls with the "dough". Roll each little ball in crushed cereal and chill until their firm.

*Notes*
We've tried this with 1 tsp of cinnamon in the dough and I really enjoyed it that way. We've also added chocolate chips and used coconut flakes instead of cereal but I felt guilty about the chocolate and went back to the cereal. I've considered crushing dried banana chips to roll the balls in, but I don't have any of those on hand right now.

Well, there ya have it, my first real recipes!! I've been trying to make a recipe book for my daughter to use with my sweet and beautiful little granddaughters so most of the cooking I'm working on is really kid friendly. Of course the "experts" will tell you that you should not give honey to a child under the age of 1, I'm not saying that I agree with the "experts" but I thought I should mention that.

I'm off to finish working on supper now. I hope everyone is having a good week so far.

Purple Honey and the Frog in the Frying Pan

2007-07-26T15:35:00.000-04:00

This is our wonderful, exotic, rare and extra super yummy Purple Honey!!! We had never heard of purple honey and initially wondered if something terrible was wrong with our bees. Now that we have had time to research the matter and (most importantly) taste the honey we're only sorry that there isn't more of it!! This is by far my favorite honey ever, it has such a smooth taste and a sweetness that I've never had in honey of any kind in any of the places I've ever had honey. Being a lifelong honey consumer I've developed quite a taste for certain types of honey but now I believe I'm ruined..... there just aren't any that taste like this stuff.

It took us quite awhile to figure out what is going on with our honey and the truth of the matter is that no one really knows for sure. There are several theories as to what it is that is causing it but regardless of what the correct theory is it is very rare and only occurs in this little part of the world where I live. The kids and I just feel so blessed that after all the studying and working and heartbreaks we have had with the bees and all of the things we know we have yet to go through in our first year we were given such a special experience as our purple honey.

I haven't posted in awhile, and this post is going to be too short to catch anyone up on life around here. As usual; lately I'm feeling a little like a frog in a frying pan. There just always seems to be too much going on for me to stay in any one place very long and as a result everything is either waiting to be done, be started or is half done and waiting to be finished. I start and end every day at a dead out run and still only get a tiny portion of what I need to do for my family finished! It's kind of discouraging to work so hard and see so little progress ya know? It's not like I'm sleeping in and sitting around doing nothing, I'm up no later than 6:30 and it's usually closer to 5 or 5:30. I don't get to bed until 11:30 or 12 and most often it's 12:30 or 1 before my head hits the pillow.

We are schooling every day that we can just trying to get all caught up and in that process do what we need to do for this year's schooling. (shhh, don't tell but the kids still haven't taken their yearly tests) I sometimes catch myself wishing that schooling was still like it was when the kids were in the lower grades and it could all be done in the car while going down the road or at home in 45 minutes a day. The reality is that upper middle grades and high school just take more time and it has to be time without distractions. We usually get all sorts of distractions plus the one day a week that we set aside for errands and library runs so we are doing good if we get two full days of school crammed into our week right now. The kids are even getting grumpy that we aren't spending enough time in school!!!

We work in the garden for about an hour every morning... well, not just the garden. More like the garden, the dogs, the doves, the chickens and picking up around the yard. Then there's the bees. We lost Jared's hive after letting ourselves get tricked into thinking they were out of the woods and that was all it took to determine to be more diligent in taking care of the bees. This time of year a good beekeeper should most likely be checking on the bees at least every 2-3 weeks and in a hive that has had any problems at all it should be 1-2 weeks or 7-10 days. Well, all of our hives have either had problems or been split to aid ailing hives so we should be in the hives at least every week and a half for now..... Jared's hive died after we had not been in it for lack of time in over 3 weeks.

We are still fighting the flea battle, but I have come to the conclusion that I may do better in my efforts to kill the fleas by hurling all of my hunk o honey's paycheck directly at them rather than tossing it into the flea "killing" sprays and powders that are only accomplishing giving me a headache and taking up my grocery budget.

There are plenty of great and wonderful things going on around here too though. The bees made us some purple honey, the garden is giving us lots of squash and beans and some tomatoes and cucumbers and a watermelon a few peppers and a cantelope. I'm sure it would have done more if I had taken better care of it but you know .... I'm the frog in the frying pan so the garden is full of weeds now, and bugs and some kind of blight killing off my plants.

Anyway, the kids are trying to decide whether or not to sell any of their purple honey and how much to charge for it if they do. I'm trying my best to just keep up but I always feel like I'm only falling further behind. And now I'm late starting supper so that we can make it to a revival meeting on time tonight!!! See ya.

HELP!!!! We have fleas!!!

2007-07-16T11:52:00.000-04:00

And they are biting me!!! I hate fleas I hate them I hate them!!! This is the first time in I don't know how many years we have ever had a flea problem and boy oh boy do we have a flea problem! My poor little dog is miserable, the big dog is miserable and the cat is gonna be really miserable as soon as I can catch him and throw him into a flea bath too!

Please pray that we are able to get rid of them quickly! I'm off to steam my carpets and put chemicals (yuck, double yuck and YUCK) on my poor little infested critters and then take a long long long hot shower and pretend that I'm flea proof. Did I say I hate fleas?

God is GOOD!!

2007-07-11T09:14:00.001-04:00

I know I've posted this picture before but I still just love it and the Lord brought it to my mind again so here it is along with the story of how the Lord brought it to mind again.

A few weeks ago the kids and I had been struggling with some things for awhile, and it really seemed like no matter what we just couldn't get them resolved. The longer we struggled with them the more divided by all of it we seemed to get and the worse those problems got too. Some of it was individual kind of issues, some was issues with each other and some was just a combination of hurts and worries from outside of home that seemed to be crushing our efforts to reach out to the Lord with the rest of the stuff. It had gotten to the point of nearly every word one of us said to one another provoked either anger or tears even though none of us had cause to be angry or hurt with each other.

Finally I had just had it with fighting with the kids and watching them struggle so separately and watching all of our own individual "stuff" divide our family because of bad attitudes and hurt feelings and just the stress of it all so I did what I have always done when we have to air out our family stuff and get fresh breeze so to speak.... I threw the kids in the truck and went for a drive through the backroads. I did that thinking that it would be like usual, we would be pretty much trapped together for awhile with no choice but to talk it out and deal with all that was going on.

The day started out with all the normal "oooh look there's an elderberry bush blooming" and "we have to come back here in a few weeks, that's staghorn sumac blooming" and all of our normal chatty 'in the car' kind of talk. But then I stopped for gas and one of the kids who wanted a drink had forgotten their water bottle and their money but because they were still sore over something silly with the other kids was too full of hurt and pride to ask for help from them. I had just reached the snapping point so I quietly got out of the truck and walked over to the air machine pretending to put air in the tire I got down on my knees and asked the Lord for help getting all of this stuff within my family dealt with ...... and when I got back in the truck, HE got in with us!! Right there in the gas station parking lot me and the kids all bowed our heads and asked HIM to help us work out all of the junk we'd been carrying around with us for so long and to help us find the solution to all those burdens that were dragging us down as a family.

Quite awhile later ...... so much later in fact that people were staring at our vehicle full of crying shouting people and the Lord .... we left the parking lot still crying and shouting and riding with our most cherished friend in the midst of us all. Life in the truck for the rest of that afternoon was just a whirlwind of blessings, each of us seeing so clearly the solutions to the things we had been holding onto and carrying around for so much longer than what we had needed to. The kids began apologizing to each other and to me and tearfully to their Daddy on the cell phone. Still shouting a county away from where we started and still being more blessed than any of us deserved we saw so clearly that the whole root of all of the problems that were weighing us down so badly was simple.

It takes empty arms to hold onto the cross! When we were so busy worrying over all of our "stuff" and stressing over what to do and how to handle xyz situation we were holding onto that junk instead of holding onto the one thing that could change either the problem or the person with the problem. It truly felt like Jesus himself was sitting right there beside each of us as each worry or problem was spoken and prayed for HE just said "okay, I got that one" and took it from us!!

We all felt such sweet relief from all the worry and tension we had carried and vowed to each other to never again allow such junk to keep us from coming together to the Lord. Afterward it all seems so simple, but walking through it wasn't. Life truly is like I told the kids that day though, you can let situations and circumstances and worry hold you down because that's what you hold onto or you can reach up to the cross of Calvary and let Jesus lift you up, but there just isn't any way that any of us can do both. We all were so amazed that the Lord just met with us that way but I don't think we should be, I think if we are really truly seeking him to the point of just setting EVERYTHING ELSE ASIDE.... there HE will be.

You know what though ...... HE stayed on with us and even today we are seeing HIS hand reaching out into our lives to lift burdens and calm fears and worries. Little things and big things alike if we hold onto HIM and trust HIM then HE can take care of those things for us. And I just can't tell you what a blessing it has been to see the kids still carrying HIM with them and getting blessed even now by the things that the Lord did for us that day.

Our family now has a secret sign for "let it go and hold onto HIM"...... nope, I'm not telling you what it is but your family can make their own. It brings tears to my eyes to see the kids flash that to each other across a room when they can sense that one of the other kids is having a hard time. But then there are the answered prayers too.... so many times over the last couple of weeks we have welled up with tears over a sudden answer to a prayer that we thought had been forgotten. Things that we really saw no solution to and desperately wanted resolved suddenly fixed with not a speck of effort from any one of us. And one of the best blessings of all has been watching each of the kids just draw up closer to the Lord through it all! GOD IS SO GOOD!

Blogger problems?

2007-07-04T12:14:00.000-04:00

Lately when I post something I can't seem to get back to it or bring it up in my browser without having to sign into the dashboard and go to the edit post page. Can y'all see what I'm posting or is it just me?

God Bless the USA

2007-07-04T12:02:00.000-04:00

Happy Independence Day!!!

FINALLY....HONEY!

2007-07-02T12:16:00.000-04:00

I've been wanting to post the pictures but as usual time is an issue around here. We always seem to have more to do than there is ever time for. But finally here are the pics!It was messy but not as bad as I thought it would be and if you put down some cardboard you can carry the whole mess outside and let the bees clean it up!

First we had to put on our suits and veils and go out to the hives to take the honey supers off...... which is nowhere near as easy as it sounds like it should be. Bees are very protective of their homes and their honey. Once we had the frames of honey we took them into the kitchen and here's how we extracted our honey.

Bees are so cool! They make their own little pantry out of wax to store their honey in, all we have to do is give them a frame to build the wax in. I had to cut the wax out so I could crush the cells that the honey is stored in. If we had bought an extractor bucket we could have just put the frame in there and spun the honey out but those can be pricey so for now we are crushing the comb and straining it.

The white coating means that the bees have evaporated the right amount of water off of the honey so it won't ferment. Honey that has a moisture content higher than 18% will ferment and I don't think I want to eat that! Not all of the honey we had in the hives was capped so we will have more to come later on.

(I apologize for the pictures being kind of odd... Fred is just learning to take them)
Then we had to crush the comb that the bees built so that we could get the honey to strain out. I tried several different things but so far my old tater masher works best.

The kids bought a bottling bucket and strainers that sit inside the top. It takes the honey a little while to filter through all of the strainers.

Caleb is not patient enough to just wait for it to filter either. He sat there about half the time catching and claiming the drips.

12 ounces of honey is a pound. Here is the kid's first six pounds of honey. So far they have harvested around 20 pounds. They won't be selling any this year, but we have really enjoyed the honey we've gotten so far. I think next year we need more bees!

And here are the happy little beekeepers! We melted down all the wax in our old solar oven... now turned solar wax melter. The kids will use that in their soaps and lotions and salves and whatever else they can think of to turn it into.

It's almost HONEY time!

2007-06-18T12:21:00.000-04:00

And we are just about burst with excitement waiting for the day that we take the honey off of the hives! We have been waiting and watching and tending our bees for what feels like a very long time now.... in reality it has only been a few months. The last time we peeked into the hives the bees were almost done capping the honey .... which is the bee version of putting a lid on it to store it. Capped honey is the only kind that you can harvest without eating it immediately or it will begin to ferment. The bees will cap the honey when it is around 18% or less water. We ordered the crush and strain equipment to get the honey out of the comb since an extractor is just wayyy to expensive. We also like that the crush and strain will give us better quality wax to use in our soaps and stuff that the kids have been making. I think though that we may also put up some cut comb honey too since I saw some on beekeeper Linda's blog and it looks so yummy!

We used to just buy honey at the grocery store and I actually almost feel sorry for folks who have never had honey other than that kind because the flavor is completely different! Also since we have started keeping bees and have learned so much more about honey (which is one of our favorite foods and medicines ) we learned that most of the honey you get in the store is diluted with corn syrup. It is perfectly legal to make "corn syrup" honey by feeding bees high fructose corn syrup which they simply add a bit of their own digestive enzyme to and taaaa daaaa it's honey. Unfortunately there a lot of people who do that or just plain old pour in corn syrup before bottling which is rarely detected since the only way to tell would be to look at it under a microscope. Either way, to me that isn't honey but corn syrup and I really prefer to eat real, fresh, raw, unpasturized honey. There is nothing that can compare to the taste! The sum total of honey is the nectar and pollen that a bee takes in +their digestive enzymes..... that's it the recipe for honey which contains bunches of minerals, proteins and lots of other wonderful compounds that are wonderfully healthy and healing. There is no way to produce honey without honey bees but shamefully it is perfectly legal to dilute that honey and still label it as "pure".

I'm just biding my time 'til we can get some fresh honey..... it won't be long now.