I got this in the email from a friend and thought I would share it.
How to Save Money PART 1 by Mrs. Paul Jett (Linda)
Often I hear, "How did our parents or grandparents ever do it having land and home and savings accounts to pass down?" Or, "I wish we could get out of debt!"? Or, "We both HAVE to work." Or, "We have to borrow money because we just can’t make it on our salary." Or, "We have so many children we just can’t stretch it."
Stay home! Going costs in fuels, tires, wear and tear on your vehicle, desires to spend, temptations from billboards and samples or displays from stores. Every time you go to town, or anywhere else, stop and add the fuel to the price of your purchases or to your outing. If you will actually keep a closer count of fuel expenditures, you will find it easier to reduce your going! If you are a person who runs for milk or bread, don’t forget to add the price of that fuel to your purchase. It will cause much better planning on your part. It is NEVER economical to buy small purchases or to have a small pantry. The well stocked pantry is money saved. If you can’t afford to start a well stocked pantry, then add one or two bulk items (or quantity purchases) per week until you finally have plenty to have whatever you need, when you need it!
Stay out of the store, or even thrift stores and garage sales unless there is a need and you have prayed and asked the Lord to help provide for a need in the family (and only then when HE says to go)! Stores are full of advertising to make you stop and want. Thrift stores and garage sales are wonderful for saving, but also addictive! You can’t stay away because of "the bargain" that you are afraid of missing and soon, because the prices are so cheap, you have spent MUCH money and your house is overflowing! When you go to the store and you are shopping around rather than following your list of needs, try looking at a bargain or item and then go on with your shopping. If you really couldn’t live without it you will be drawn back to it, but the impulse buying will have passed. REMEMBER, as I have stated so many times before: "pray over items and ask the Lord if you NEED it"!
Don’t subscribe to magazines! They cause you to want excessively, OR just want period. They keep you discontent with what you have! Seeing the "perfect" places makes you discontent with what you have. They also make us want to constantly change! Contentment is the way to live life and live it economically within our means. Magazines are full of things to order, places to send you to and yearly changes for your home and gardens!
Cancel catalogs! They create too many desires and wants! A catalog is made to get you to want and order. If you NEED something, then go where they have them, or ask for a catalog to make an order and then pass it back to the store or elsewhere. The more it sits there, the more you want from it! I have a method when I receive catalogs from places. I look at it, make a list of things that I want or "need". Then I put it away. If I really need the items I will be drawn back to get the item or items ordered, but never order right away. Most of our ordering is a "passing whim".
Don’t watch TV! They show people with wealth that the average person doesn’t have and the advertisements are designed to keep you discontent and wanting the newest, the latest, the sleekest, the yummiest, the easiest! TV will lower your standards for living the Godly life, they will eat away your time for productiveness, they will cheat you from time with family, and time with the Lord! TV also keeps you constantly hungry and coveting!
Don’t eat out! Feed your family! The woman’s two main responsibilities are to feed her family and to keep them in clean and neat clothes! How embarrassing it is to see men and children buying their meals, or getting them from others, when a primary responsibility of the woman is to feed her family! In times past, she would have been disgraced to have not provided their meals–to take with them or when they are home! Men never went to McDonald’s or Luby’s to get their meals with the money they were so carefully trying to accumulate for their families. Women did their part by being an asset to the family (their husband’s helpmeet) and by seeing all were adequately and healthfully fed. I don’t care how you figure it, you cannot eat out for less than 5-10 times anything you can make at home! Most things are actually 10-20 times higher than what you can do at home! You figure a $.99 hamburger isn’t too bad?? Well, I can make a wonderful big hamburger with $.79 lb ground turkey, my wonderful homemade bread (it costs me about $.40 a loaf, even for multi-grain or whole wheat!)(made into a bun if I choose), a bit of mayonnaise, lettuce, tomato, and pickle, all for about $.25 or so!! Now, does your special $.99 hamburger sound so good after all?? Plus, did you purchase only a $.99 hamburger or did you buy a coke, french fries and possibly more??
A dozen donuts cost more than a whole big breakfast for a big family. How about a $.05 cup of coffee (even with the cream and sugar and perhaps some cocoa mix in it!), that you will spend $.50 to $2.50 for if you go out. You can do better than that at home and keep the change for the future! You can even invite guests over and share your coffee for less than the cup of coffee you bought! For hubby, make sure you send him a big thermos of hot, steaming coffee (or tea), just the way he likes it. Men often pay quite a bit for their "coffee out" that you could have prepared at home for pennies! If your husband had to drive to get that coffee, or that lunch, you just added more of your hard earned cash into the price of the coffee or lunch with the gasoline involved! Use some of your creativity and let it PAY YOU! Make beautiful, creative lunches that will make him the envy of those at work! Make things from scratch and improve taste along with saving money!
Next time you go out, enter it into your cost journal (along with the gas!) and see what you missed out on, on a more permanent scale! It doesn’t take long until you have increased your savings, or your land, house, furniture or something else you can keep around, rather than enjoyment for a moment. Suggest to hubby he could have a new tool or what knot for the computer by saving gas and eat out money! Make the lunches so wonderful he doesn’t WANT to eat out!
Jill Cooper of "Living On A Dime"* writes in her article "Are We Depriving Our Kids?": "I often hear ladies complaining that they want to stay at home with their kids but that they "have to work since it is so expensive to raise kids these days". One of the main questions I get asked about frugal living is "won’t I be depriving my children if I live the frugal life?" Maybe I can answer that question with a few questions. How am I depriving my children by having them drink water for every meal instead of juice and soda? Isn’t one thing doctors are always complaining about is we don’t drink enough water? Cutting out just one glass of soda per person per day for a family of four would save $547.50 a year and make them healthier. How am I depriving my children by having them eat an apple or homemade granola bar for a snack instead of a bag of chips? Obesity is a major problem among children in the United States. If you cut out just one bag of chips a week you would save $104.00 a year and make them healthier."
Have home entertainment, not entertainment establishments! If you find it necessary to "play", then play at home! Play with husband or wife or children. Create things to play and do and this does not necessitate a lot of expensive equipment or games! Whatever happened to wonderful pitch, or jump rope, or bingo, or hide and go seek, or word games? Families have done it for centuries but now we must go to establishments that cost the families much of the fathers time and labor and the savings towards more lasting things for the future. You say "We just can’t afford any land or an addition to the house to fit the family into better." The reason? You ate it, bought lots of fuel, or "played" it away! For many families you "watched" it away on satellites and movies, or listened it away on music tapes, CD's, etc.
Thursday, May 11, 2006
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
The cost of her divided heart
The United States newborn survival rate ranks low. That was a news headline that I read yesterday and for about half a minute I was actually shocked to read it. Then I started thinking about it. In this country we women aren't really allowed to really give our hearts to caring for our children and husbands the way that we should....we are condemned for it by a society that values the woman's ability to earn a dollar over her ability to mother and care for her children. I would be willing to say that the US divorce rate and the rate of children born out of wedlock is also a contributing factor to the problem of babies not living long enough to leave the hospital.....and also results of women with divided hearts.
When a woman leaves the duties of the home to go find work or to go to school she is forced to divide her heart between her worldly pursuits and the love of her home and family. She is immediately in a position to have to choose every minute of every day which set of priorities she will serve....it usually will end up being the one that brings in the paycheck or promises some other glittery reward, rarely the supposed drudgery of being the invisible force that keeps a family running smoothly along will win out. Not that her intentions are that way, it just works that way and rarely does the poor thing see it coming when suddenly a child is very ill or a husband begins to stay away from home later and later.....then she feels literally torn apart in trying to be all things to all people in all situations and who wouldn't be depressed about that?! Has anyone else noticed that new anti-depressant medications are released every few months as the tolerance to the "old ones" has built up to the point that they are no longer effective?....and could all of those medications be affecting the survival rate of newborns? Hmmm.
I also notice that the most common thing that I hear from working mothers to be is that they don't want to foster "too much of an attachment" with their new babies to make the return to work easier at the end of maternity leave. As a result they don't hold and cuddle their babies as much as moms who stay home and they don't breastfeed them either at all or primarily via pumping. Yet people don't seem to understand this "phenomenon" of post partum depression skyrocketing. To fit in with the world we must immediately begin to distance ourselves from our babies the minute that they are born. We have to teach them to attach themselves to daycare providers and teachers and before they are even potty trained kids are looking for SOMEONE to just love them the way that their mothers should....yet we act shocked when 13 year old girls get pregnant or when 7&8 year old girls start talking about boyfriends. People... children are lonely and hurting and trying to fill the holes that are left by her divided heart.
I am sick to death of the feminist rant that women who stay home aren't achieving what they should be. What pure trash! I've watched countless marriages fall into ruin (nearly my own included) and I don't want to think about how many girls under 18 and without husbands I have know who had babies and we really don't want to talk about how many kids I've seen get locked up either in detention or mental health facilities or both.....all because a women somewhere felt the need to divide her heart, her time and her attention between what God has given her and what the world made her think she could have. If you are fortunate enough to have never fallen into the trap of the world and left your family to go to work then be very very thankful for that.....if you are one of the ones who is trying to figure out how to put the pieces back together like some very good friends of mine just cling to the truth of the matter and pray hard. The next time someone tells me that I need a job I'm liable to slap them a couple of times in an attempt to knock some sense into them.....I have the job that the Lord has given me and I love it.
The world tries to blame the poor rate of infant survival in the US on things like race, poverty, lack of adequate access to birth control and poor sex education for young folks. The truth is that the US has forced the family to splinter into fragments that must function (dysfunctionaly) individually and in positions that the Lord never intended. Our nation has become such a liberal run society that it no longer is willing to accept that things like divorce, juvenile crime, teen pregnancy, drug abuse, alcoholism and poverty are all preventable and that by and large those are consequences of families being forced into unnatural states of being rather than "just today's society" or some other such nonsensical saying.
I wish I could apoligize for ranting but not this time. I will apoligize for my rant having been poorly written but nothing more. To my sweet and precious friend who I talked to this morning....may the Lord bless you as you and your hubby try to put your lives back together, I'll be praying.
When a woman leaves the duties of the home to go find work or to go to school she is forced to divide her heart between her worldly pursuits and the love of her home and family. She is immediately in a position to have to choose every minute of every day which set of priorities she will serve....it usually will end up being the one that brings in the paycheck or promises some other glittery reward, rarely the supposed drudgery of being the invisible force that keeps a family running smoothly along will win out. Not that her intentions are that way, it just works that way and rarely does the poor thing see it coming when suddenly a child is very ill or a husband begins to stay away from home later and later.....then she feels literally torn apart in trying to be all things to all people in all situations and who wouldn't be depressed about that?! Has anyone else noticed that new anti-depressant medications are released every few months as the tolerance to the "old ones" has built up to the point that they are no longer effective?....and could all of those medications be affecting the survival rate of newborns? Hmmm.
I also notice that the most common thing that I hear from working mothers to be is that they don't want to foster "too much of an attachment" with their new babies to make the return to work easier at the end of maternity leave. As a result they don't hold and cuddle their babies as much as moms who stay home and they don't breastfeed them either at all or primarily via pumping. Yet people don't seem to understand this "phenomenon" of post partum depression skyrocketing. To fit in with the world we must immediately begin to distance ourselves from our babies the minute that they are born. We have to teach them to attach themselves to daycare providers and teachers and before they are even potty trained kids are looking for SOMEONE to just love them the way that their mothers should....yet we act shocked when 13 year old girls get pregnant or when 7&8 year old girls start talking about boyfriends. People... children are lonely and hurting and trying to fill the holes that are left by her divided heart.
I am sick to death of the feminist rant that women who stay home aren't achieving what they should be. What pure trash! I've watched countless marriages fall into ruin (nearly my own included) and I don't want to think about how many girls under 18 and without husbands I have know who had babies and we really don't want to talk about how many kids I've seen get locked up either in detention or mental health facilities or both.....all because a women somewhere felt the need to divide her heart, her time and her attention between what God has given her and what the world made her think she could have. If you are fortunate enough to have never fallen into the trap of the world and left your family to go to work then be very very thankful for that.....if you are one of the ones who is trying to figure out how to put the pieces back together like some very good friends of mine just cling to the truth of the matter and pray hard. The next time someone tells me that I need a job I'm liable to slap them a couple of times in an attempt to knock some sense into them.....I have the job that the Lord has given me and I love it.
The world tries to blame the poor rate of infant survival in the US on things like race, poverty, lack of adequate access to birth control and poor sex education for young folks. The truth is that the US has forced the family to splinter into fragments that must function (dysfunctionaly) individually and in positions that the Lord never intended. Our nation has become such a liberal run society that it no longer is willing to accept that things like divorce, juvenile crime, teen pregnancy, drug abuse, alcoholism and poverty are all preventable and that by and large those are consequences of families being forced into unnatural states of being rather than "just today's society" or some other such nonsensical saying.
I wish I could apoligize for ranting but not this time. I will apoligize for my rant having been poorly written but nothing more. To my sweet and precious friend who I talked to this morning....may the Lord bless you as you and your hubby try to put your lives back together, I'll be praying.
Thursday, May 04, 2006
Hell's Best Kept Secret
Hell's Best Kept Secret is free to watch or listen to online, or you can download it and record it to cd or you can order the cd, dvd, or I think even a book but please do listen to it, watch it or read it! It is really well done and a great help to all of us who have a heart and desire to labor for the Lord. My family watched it the other night and it really helped us. I found it at http://www.livingwaters.com/listenwatch.shtml
The kids and I have also watched several of the other videos from the Way of the Master tv show that are available to watch on the site. http://www.livingwaters.com/watch.shtml They are all feeling much more comfortable with how to reach out to folks and share their faith now and really enjoyed watching. I found out through the Living Waters website that we can watch the actually tv series Way of the Master online so we may do that from time to time as well. One of the sisters from our church happened to have a copy of the book and has loaned it to us too so we will be using that in our study time at home.
Other than studying and trying to improve our ability to reach others for Jesus we have been trying to get a few things done around here. My garden is growing but it is going to need help soon. I'm just not used to sandy soil and so little rain or I guess i should say irregular rainfall on sandy ground. I'm thinking that I will just have to mulch and mulch and mulch.....good thing that we have so many leaves to mulch with. We will soon be swinging over into our summer time schooling schedule and then it will be a little easier to get out there and spend some time in the garden. I am hoping to get the time to till up some more ground since I still have lots of things that I would love to plant before the summer gets here and it will be too late.
Well folks, that's all for today.....I just wanted to post that link like I said I would.
The kids and I have also watched several of the other videos from the Way of the Master tv show that are available to watch on the site. http://www.livingwaters.com/watch.shtml They are all feeling much more comfortable with how to reach out to folks and share their faith now and really enjoyed watching. I found out through the Living Waters website that we can watch the actually tv series Way of the Master online so we may do that from time to time as well. One of the sisters from our church happened to have a copy of the book and has loaned it to us too so we will be using that in our study time at home.
Other than studying and trying to improve our ability to reach others for Jesus we have been trying to get a few things done around here. My garden is growing but it is going to need help soon. I'm just not used to sandy soil and so little rain or I guess i should say irregular rainfall on sandy ground. I'm thinking that I will just have to mulch and mulch and mulch.....good thing that we have so many leaves to mulch with. We will soon be swinging over into our summer time schooling schedule and then it will be a little easier to get out there and spend some time in the garden. I am hoping to get the time to till up some more ground since I still have lots of things that I would love to plant before the summer gets here and it will be too late.
Well folks, that's all for today.....I just wanted to post that link like I said I would.
Monday, May 01, 2006
Soulwinning and marriage killing
Physically I feel totally drained....I've not been sleeping much and it's beginning to show in the way I'm performing around the house. I'm so thankful though that even when my body is feeling just about ready to quit that my mind is still working and planning and 'tidying up'. We had a wonderful weekend and even got to go out witnessing as a family....that rarely happens just because of schedules and my health.
Yesterday between church services and today after our bible reading the kids and I have been studying about how to be better witnesses for the Lord and how to reach lost souls more effectively. There are lots of wonderful resources available through www.wayofthemaster.com We have been so excited to finally have some tools to use other than just asking folks if they are saved (we've gotten plenty of dirty looks over that) and giving our own testimony (which always leads to someone telling us they are glad it works for us but isn't for them) and the typical things that christians are taught to do when trying to reach folks. We love inviting people to our church and we love to tell folks what the Lord has done for us but we are all really desperately wanting to see lost souls convicted of their need for Christ and ask Jesus to be their Savior. I really love the resources there because they focus on bringing a person to conviction and explains that so many folks are "backslidden" and so many false professions are made because people simply don't see WHY they need Jesus before they say a happy little prayer that they think will be the magic bullet for their messed up life. I'll post the link to the video "Hell's Best Kept Secret" soon....it's done by Ray Comfort and really goes into depth about why 80-90% of the people who say a 'sinner's prayer' or prayer for salvation end up out of fellowship less than a year later and never really get on fire for God.
Troy and I had been trying for quite awhile now to help the kids learn to reach out for the Lord but we felt so ill equipped ourselves that we are having to 'teach the teacher' first. I would encourage anyone who needs help finding ways to talk to people about the Lord to check out the things they have available on their site.....and even if you are a veteran soul winner there is something there of use. We have only just dipped in on the surface and can't wait to keep digging!!!
Also on my mind lately is marriages. A sister at church requested prayer for marriages not too long ago and I have to confess that marriages, couples, families have all been on my heart for so long now! After seeing how the Lord saved my marriage and what He has done to/for my family I can't help but pray for others who need that kind of "spit and polish" so to speak in their own lives. It breaks my heart to see so many women make snide remarks about their husbands.....even followed with a little giggle or when he is out of earshot those comments and the meditations of the minds and hearts of those women are killing their marriages!
I know that I am just as guilty as many other women I know of indulging in the urge to make that little remark about my husband.....what makes it worse when I do it is that I KNOW FOR A FACT....just how badly that has hurt my marriage in the past...it drives a wedge between the couple, a wedge of distrust, it destroys his faith in his wife's ability to love him despite his faults and failings, it undermines his ability to trust in himself as the leader of his family, and little by little it seeps into every day conversations and thoughts and turns into actions that start out really tiny but grow over time and like weeds in a garden it soon over grows the feelings of love and closeness in a marriage. I have had to take it to the Lord time and time again and just ask Him to help me watch my tongue to help me keep my thoughts right and to help me be the helpmeet that He would have me to be for my husband. Even if my husband was the biggest jerk in the world I would still only be contributing to the problem by giving it a voice that can be heard by someone outside of my marriage (other than the Lord). Even worse is when that sort of thing is overheard by the children of the couple.....I remember very very clearly the impact on my life when my parents (or as the case may be step parent and parent) made those kind of "joking" remarks about each other. Anything that isn't praise of your spouse is not joking....it's not funny....it's downright dangerous!
That is a lesson that I had to learn in one of the hardest ways possible. I had to hear from my husband as our marriage was literally falling apart just how those "little comments" had built a wall of pain, frustration, anger and confusion between us over the years. I had to hear just how painful it was for him to "know" what I "really" thought of him deep down in my heart. Of course I wasn't "really" trying to hurt him....I was just "giving vent" to turmoil in my own heart or "venting" or "joking"......c'mon, we all know what I was truly doing...I was making a dig, I don't know one woman who has never done it. We all know how one little thing leads to one bigger thing leads to even bigger things and problems in life tend to snowball out of control....especially problems that have roots in sin and aren't dealt with in prayer. I'm not saying that 100% of the problems that were in my marriage came about because I had said some unkind words about my husband, but it sure did kick the door to trouble wide open and send out a gold guilded invitation!!!
I am so very blessed that the Lord rescued my marriage!! I can't imagine one day without my husband let alone the rest of my life as his advesary in endless fights over visitation with the kids, child support and who's fault the mess our lives had become really was in the first place. I'm am so glad that Troy let me know what those "off hand remarks" were doing to his heart so that I could see what they were doing to my marriage.
Wow, I really didn't mean to rant like this but like I said this subject has really been on my heart for awhile now and I keep seeing or should I say hearing this very thing go on. So now you know what's on my mind and heart for prayer today!!! Now I have to get my chores finished up before my sweet hubby gets off work for the day and wonders what I did to redeem the time this day......which was actually plenty but that is a story for another day.
Yesterday between church services and today after our bible reading the kids and I have been studying about how to be better witnesses for the Lord and how to reach lost souls more effectively. There are lots of wonderful resources available through www.wayofthemaster.com We have been so excited to finally have some tools to use other than just asking folks if they are saved (we've gotten plenty of dirty looks over that) and giving our own testimony (which always leads to someone telling us they are glad it works for us but isn't for them) and the typical things that christians are taught to do when trying to reach folks. We love inviting people to our church and we love to tell folks what the Lord has done for us but we are all really desperately wanting to see lost souls convicted of their need for Christ and ask Jesus to be their Savior. I really love the resources there because they focus on bringing a person to conviction and explains that so many folks are "backslidden" and so many false professions are made because people simply don't see WHY they need Jesus before they say a happy little prayer that they think will be the magic bullet for their messed up life. I'll post the link to the video "Hell's Best Kept Secret" soon....it's done by Ray Comfort and really goes into depth about why 80-90% of the people who say a 'sinner's prayer' or prayer for salvation end up out of fellowship less than a year later and never really get on fire for God.
Troy and I had been trying for quite awhile now to help the kids learn to reach out for the Lord but we felt so ill equipped ourselves that we are having to 'teach the teacher' first. I would encourage anyone who needs help finding ways to talk to people about the Lord to check out the things they have available on their site.....and even if you are a veteran soul winner there is something there of use. We have only just dipped in on the surface and can't wait to keep digging!!!
Also on my mind lately is marriages. A sister at church requested prayer for marriages not too long ago and I have to confess that marriages, couples, families have all been on my heart for so long now! After seeing how the Lord saved my marriage and what He has done to/for my family I can't help but pray for others who need that kind of "spit and polish" so to speak in their own lives. It breaks my heart to see so many women make snide remarks about their husbands.....even followed with a little giggle or when he is out of earshot those comments and the meditations of the minds and hearts of those women are killing their marriages!
I know that I am just as guilty as many other women I know of indulging in the urge to make that little remark about my husband.....what makes it worse when I do it is that I KNOW FOR A FACT....just how badly that has hurt my marriage in the past...it drives a wedge between the couple, a wedge of distrust, it destroys his faith in his wife's ability to love him despite his faults and failings, it undermines his ability to trust in himself as the leader of his family, and little by little it seeps into every day conversations and thoughts and turns into actions that start out really tiny but grow over time and like weeds in a garden it soon over grows the feelings of love and closeness in a marriage. I have had to take it to the Lord time and time again and just ask Him to help me watch my tongue to help me keep my thoughts right and to help me be the helpmeet that He would have me to be for my husband. Even if my husband was the biggest jerk in the world I would still only be contributing to the problem by giving it a voice that can be heard by someone outside of my marriage (other than the Lord). Even worse is when that sort of thing is overheard by the children of the couple.....I remember very very clearly the impact on my life when my parents (or as the case may be step parent and parent) made those kind of "joking" remarks about each other. Anything that isn't praise of your spouse is not joking....it's not funny....it's downright dangerous!
That is a lesson that I had to learn in one of the hardest ways possible. I had to hear from my husband as our marriage was literally falling apart just how those "little comments" had built a wall of pain, frustration, anger and confusion between us over the years. I had to hear just how painful it was for him to "know" what I "really" thought of him deep down in my heart. Of course I wasn't "really" trying to hurt him....I was just "giving vent" to turmoil in my own heart or "venting" or "joking"......c'mon, we all know what I was truly doing...I was making a dig, I don't know one woman who has never done it. We all know how one little thing leads to one bigger thing leads to even bigger things and problems in life tend to snowball out of control....especially problems that have roots in sin and aren't dealt with in prayer. I'm not saying that 100% of the problems that were in my marriage came about because I had said some unkind words about my husband, but it sure did kick the door to trouble wide open and send out a gold guilded invitation!!!
I am so very blessed that the Lord rescued my marriage!! I can't imagine one day without my husband let alone the rest of my life as his advesary in endless fights over visitation with the kids, child support and who's fault the mess our lives had become really was in the first place. I'm am so glad that Troy let me know what those "off hand remarks" were doing to his heart so that I could see what they were doing to my marriage.
Wow, I really didn't mean to rant like this but like I said this subject has really been on my heart for awhile now and I keep seeing or should I say hearing this very thing go on. So now you know what's on my mind and heart for prayer today!!! Now I have to get my chores finished up before my sweet hubby gets off work for the day and wonders what I did to redeem the time this day......which was actually plenty but that is a story for another day.
Saturday, April 29, 2006
Do ya ever?
Do you ever just take a minute to sit back and feel truly thankful for the blessings that you have in your life? Well, that's what I've been doing this morning....and hopefully that will just continue all through the day. I am just so thoroughly and completely blessed!!! The Lord has been so good to me and has given me not only all that I will ever really need but so much more than I could ever deserve that I just had to take the time today to sit still and say a big THANK YOU to the one who created me.
No, to all you back home folks....it's nothing sudden or huge that has happened and brought on a spell of shouting or anything like that. We still have heart aches and we still have things going on in life that can be considered 'problems' and we definitely have things going on in our lives that we don't really like much but at the end of the day I am just so blessed!!! My children are healthy, my health is good enough for me to do what really needs to be done, Troy is well. We have food in the kitchen, clothes on our backs and a nice place to live.....though we technically could ask for more WHY? There is no law that says we must always want more, but the word of God says to learn to be content.
Today I am so much more than content. I am very truly very deeply and very wonderfully blessed to have the life that I have and to be able to just tell my Saviour THANK YOU!
No, to all you back home folks....it's nothing sudden or huge that has happened and brought on a spell of shouting or anything like that. We still have heart aches and we still have things going on in life that can be considered 'problems' and we definitely have things going on in our lives that we don't really like much but at the end of the day I am just so blessed!!! My children are healthy, my health is good enough for me to do what really needs to be done, Troy is well. We have food in the kitchen, clothes on our backs and a nice place to live.....though we technically could ask for more WHY? There is no law that says we must always want more, but the word of God says to learn to be content.
Today I am so much more than content. I am very truly very deeply and very wonderfully blessed to have the life that I have and to be able to just tell my Saviour THANK YOU!
Thursday, April 20, 2006
Cleaning out the peanut butter jar
Oh this was just too good not to share. Ya'll know what a penny pincher I am and how I just hate to waste anything at all EVER. And ya'll know how my favorite saying (that didn't come straight from the heart of God to the hearts of men) is "use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without". Right? Well this is a real keeper of an idea for a penny pincher like me.
You know how you never can get the last little bit out of the peanut butter jar? I've tried spatulas and microwaving and even fingers (that was an experiment in how long can you take to clean your hands...sheesh) and still ended up unsatisfied that I was getting every last drop of the peanut butter out of there. I'll confess that I even had several 'empty' jars in the cabinet waiting for me to find that perfect way to get the food out of there to be put to good use. Well, yesterday for lunch I was really craving this asian style chicken salad that I had once a long time ago and that got my mind to working on getting that peanut butter out of there.
I wandered into the kitchen and got the leftover chicken out of the fridge and cut it up tiny, then got the leftover spaghetti noodles out and sat them in a big bowl and threw the chicken pieces in on top and cut up some green onion bits that were needing to be used before they went to the compost pile instead. Then I grabbed up one of the not quite completely empty to the satisfaction of the household tightwad peanut butter jars and put in about 1/4 cup of soy sauce, 1/4 cup of water and a couple of teaspoons of sugar.....then I shook that jar for all I was worth determined to get every single speck of peanut butter out of it this time. I poured my 'dressing' on top of the noodles and stuff and nuked it for a minute.....TAAA DAAAA. It was so yummy and quick and now I can get all of my peanut butter out of the jar!!!!
Hmmm, wonder what's for lunch today?
You know how you never can get the last little bit out of the peanut butter jar? I've tried spatulas and microwaving and even fingers (that was an experiment in how long can you take to clean your hands...sheesh) and still ended up unsatisfied that I was getting every last drop of the peanut butter out of there. I'll confess that I even had several 'empty' jars in the cabinet waiting for me to find that perfect way to get the food out of there to be put to good use. Well, yesterday for lunch I was really craving this asian style chicken salad that I had once a long time ago and that got my mind to working on getting that peanut butter out of there.
I wandered into the kitchen and got the leftover chicken out of the fridge and cut it up tiny, then got the leftover spaghetti noodles out and sat them in a big bowl and threw the chicken pieces in on top and cut up some green onion bits that were needing to be used before they went to the compost pile instead. Then I grabbed up one of the not quite completely empty to the satisfaction of the household tightwad peanut butter jars and put in about 1/4 cup of soy sauce, 1/4 cup of water and a couple of teaspoons of sugar.....then I shook that jar for all I was worth determined to get every single speck of peanut butter out of it this time. I poured my 'dressing' on top of the noodles and stuff and nuked it for a minute.....TAAA DAAAA. It was so yummy and quick and now I can get all of my peanut butter out of the jar!!!!
Hmmm, wonder what's for lunch today?
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Good morning
Good Morning folks! I'm enjoying my day already and thought I would take a few minutes just to ramble a little. We had a wonderful weekend and really enjoyed ourselves with a sunrise service on Sunday as well as two very special and sweet services at our home church. I am just so amazed every time I think of how much the Lord really does love us!
Thankfully the Lord has been helping me to find more time to just be still and be with Him! I'm really enjoying my time with the Lord lately and it seems like the more I'm with Him the more I want to squeeze more time out of my schedule to visit with Him. I'm so glad that I can have time with the Lord while I'm working and schooling the kids and all of the other things that I do but that special quiet time that is set apart just for Him seems all the more sweet to me.
We are working a lot around here lately too. Still working on the garden, though we have had a really big setback with it. I guess one of the kids left the hose on at the spigot and a dog or something bit it and we had water leaking onto the garden for who knows how long and it washed away a large portion of what I had worked up and planted. I guess I will wait awhile to see if anything germinates there and if not I'll just have to re-till and replant it. Working with such sandy soil is very very new to me. Back home all of the dirt is really dark and more solid than this. We are really hoping for a good garden but even if nothing ever grows out there we have sure grown a lot for having had the opportunity in the first place.
The kids are working hard trying to finish up schooling for this year. We won't stop schooling when we finish up the year's work but we will switch over to a much more relaxed schedule. We are hoping to get finished up and get the end of the year testing done by the week after next. We are going to be using the Accelerated Achievement curriculum from now on and Ray's Arithmetic. We've never used either one of these but have heard wonderful things about them and look forward to new learning experiences.
Troy and I are working a lot on the house and it seems like the more we do the more we want to do. We are so excited to finally have a place that feels like 'home' again and it feels so good to just let ourselves try to settle in. We have things unpacked that have been in boxes since 2001!! Troy spent last evening working on his 'shop'....it's really just a small room that he has all of his tools and things in but it is so much more than what he has had since 2000. It's good to see him feel able to settle in and get all comfy here.
The Lord is just so good to us!!! I could ramble on all day probably and never even touch on the things that I am most thankful for.
Well, I'm off to get this day started. I hope that you all have a wonderful day!
Thankfully the Lord has been helping me to find more time to just be still and be with Him! I'm really enjoying my time with the Lord lately and it seems like the more I'm with Him the more I want to squeeze more time out of my schedule to visit with Him. I'm so glad that I can have time with the Lord while I'm working and schooling the kids and all of the other things that I do but that special quiet time that is set apart just for Him seems all the more sweet to me.
We are working a lot around here lately too. Still working on the garden, though we have had a really big setback with it. I guess one of the kids left the hose on at the spigot and a dog or something bit it and we had water leaking onto the garden for who knows how long and it washed away a large portion of what I had worked up and planted. I guess I will wait awhile to see if anything germinates there and if not I'll just have to re-till and replant it. Working with such sandy soil is very very new to me. Back home all of the dirt is really dark and more solid than this. We are really hoping for a good garden but even if nothing ever grows out there we have sure grown a lot for having had the opportunity in the first place.
The kids are working hard trying to finish up schooling for this year. We won't stop schooling when we finish up the year's work but we will switch over to a much more relaxed schedule. We are hoping to get finished up and get the end of the year testing done by the week after next. We are going to be using the Accelerated Achievement curriculum from now on and Ray's Arithmetic. We've never used either one of these but have heard wonderful things about them and look forward to new learning experiences.
Troy and I are working a lot on the house and it seems like the more we do the more we want to do. We are so excited to finally have a place that feels like 'home' again and it feels so good to just let ourselves try to settle in. We have things unpacked that have been in boxes since 2001!! Troy spent last evening working on his 'shop'....it's really just a small room that he has all of his tools and things in but it is so much more than what he has had since 2000. It's good to see him feel able to settle in and get all comfy here.
The Lord is just so good to us!!! I could ramble on all day probably and never even touch on the things that I am most thankful for.
Well, I'm off to get this day started. I hope that you all have a wonderful day!
Thursday, April 13, 2006
What we've been doing lately
If you look back a few weeks to when we first started working around here you can see how much land we have cleared back there in our 'garden'. It was over run with brambles and briars and weeds....you couldn't even see that building that is behind the boys in the first picture.
There is also a picture of one of my favorite presents from my sweet hubby ever....my tiller!!!! I love that thing and boy does it ever make this garden bit a lot easier. Tae even gave it a try but didnt' think much of been shaken to bits trying to hang on while it munched up the ground. We still have a lot of clearing to do and bunches of trash to haul out of there but it sure has come a long way since we got here.....and we all have the blisters to prove it!
It's been busy again here on the 'homestead' but a very happy kind of busy. I just love the sore muscles that come from good old fashioned hard work! The kids have been working really hard too and are eager every day to get back out there and work some more. We have found that working so hard has it's spiritual benefits too....for one thing we are working too hard to do much talking (or sibling bickering for that matter) but that has only left plenty of opportunity to converse with the Lord in our hearts and out loud sometimes too. It's very very common to be out there working and hear one of us burst out in a song praising the Lord for giving us this wonderful place to live and work and fellowship with Him. Even if our garden never produces one bit of 'fruit' it has borne out plenty of fruits in each of our hearts.
I'll post more later and maybe some more pictures too, right now I have to hurry up and get ready to go to a meeting with the ladies from church.
There is also a picture of one of my favorite presents from my sweet hubby ever....my tiller!!!! I love that thing and boy does it ever make this garden bit a lot easier. Tae even gave it a try but didnt' think much of been shaken to bits trying to hang on while it munched up the ground. We still have a lot of clearing to do and bunches of trash to haul out of there but it sure has come a long way since we got here.....and we all have the blisters to prove it!
It's been busy again here on the 'homestead' but a very happy kind of busy. I just love the sore muscles that come from good old fashioned hard work! The kids have been working really hard too and are eager every day to get back out there and work some more. We have found that working so hard has it's spiritual benefits too....for one thing we are working too hard to do much talking (or sibling bickering for that matter) but that has only left plenty of opportunity to converse with the Lord in our hearts and out loud sometimes too. It's very very common to be out there working and hear one of us burst out in a song praising the Lord for giving us this wonderful place to live and work and fellowship with Him. Even if our garden never produces one bit of 'fruit' it has borne out plenty of fruits in each of our hearts.
I'll post more later and maybe some more pictures too, right now I have to hurry up and get ready to go to a meeting with the ladies from church.
Friday, April 07, 2006
Finding the time for quiet time
Something that I have really been struggling with is finding the time to just be quiet and be in God's presence. To just sit at the feet of the Lord and learn what He would have for me. It seems that there is always something begging for my attention and my energies (which are limited anyway) and we all know how many things there are these days that we are supposed to be DOING. I struggle constantly with the question 'is this what people want me to do, what I want me to do or what the Lord wants me to do?'. For most of the people I know life has just become far too complicated and busy and leaves us feeling drained and out of sorts and out of step with what the Lord has for us. I don't want to give the Lord the 'leftovers' of my day, I want my quiet time with him to be time that my mind is alert and ready to draw from His well. I don't want to come to him only when I'm panting with exhaustion and ready to fall asleep as soon I begin to pray......the problem is that I feel that way most of the time some days. So I am beginning a new quest....I need to simplify my life.
A. W. Tozer said "We christians must simplify our lives or lose untold treasures on earth and in eternity. Modern civilization is so complex as to make the devotional life all but impossible. The need for solitude and quietness was never greater than it is today."
I am so guilty of getting caught up with what is going on around me that I neglect to create that time of simply sitting at His feet. It's past time to remedy that and today I begin making it more of a priority than ever before.
A. W. Tozer said "We christians must simplify our lives or lose untold treasures on earth and in eternity. Modern civilization is so complex as to make the devotional life all but impossible. The need for solitude and quietness was never greater than it is today."
I am so guilty of getting caught up with what is going on around me that I neglect to create that time of simply sitting at His feet. It's past time to remedy that and today I begin making it more of a priority than ever before.
Thursday, April 06, 2006
Run run run
It seems like running around trying to hurry up and be somewhere or get something done has been the focus around here for awhile now. It's all good things like meetings at church and outings with the kids and helping out folks who need the help but boy am I worn out!!! I don't see myself slowing down much either since there is just so much going on that I want to be part of and so many other things that I have planned and projects here to work on that even when I do have a chance to lay down and rest I can only lay there and plot the things that I want to be doing. It really isn't helping me either that my mind is just soooo busy right now. Sometimes I wish that my mind had an off button so that I could go into 'sleep' mode like the computer does. There is so much on my mind so I'll just blab all but the unspoken stuff here for now and see if just getting it out of there for a bit helps at all.
My kids.....
Jessie -- still living with her baby's daddy's grandpa in a tiny little studio apartment but has managed to spend the money everyone has given her to help get a house on a new car and now the other not very old car that she has is sitting in the parking lot at her baby's daddy's grandpa's apartment. GRRRRRR. Do you ever just want to shake someone and remind them that they are way too old to be so irresponsible?
Josh -- doing wonderful. He is working constantly and keeps getting promotions, raises and more job offers. His graduation is June 4th and I know he is really ready to be finished with school. He isn't sure whether he will go right to college or not and to tell the truth I don't see any harm at all in him waiting to see what the Lord would have him to do before he dives into something else.
Tae, Jared, and Caleb -- almost done with school for this year!!! I ordered the tests for them today and will most likely get that done within the next few weeks. I know that they all still have some fairly serious weak spots (especially the boys with math) but we have a great plan for finishing our quest to get back on track before the official start of next year's schooling. They are all very very excited about the garden we have planned and getting some critters to keep here too.
Tae is growing into a wonderful young woman who has a real heart for the Lord. She is so sweet and helpful that I wonder sometimes what I ever did to deserve her....my precious little 'fred'. She still is very seriously interested in Mr. Puppy Love and he in her but they are waiting on the Lord and have both managed to seriously impress me and her daddy with the way they have chosen to handle this situation. We are just praying and praying that they will continue to just give it to God and do His will for their lives.
Jared is growing and growing and growing.....if grocery consumption was a contest boy would we be a blue ribbon family!!! The boy can eat!!! He has also turned into a pretty serious book worm and is rejoicing over having gotten his first library card since we moved to North Carolina.....the only down side is that the library didn't have any of the books that he wanted the most (biographies of great men of God and other books of that kind). Troy and I are trying to see what kind of book budget we can come up with for the kids for books like that and I am really blessed to have a wonderful sister in Christ who has an awesome book collection that she loves to share.
Our big concern with Jared right now is that he is really trying to run from God (again). He tends to do that when the Lord has given him a burden and he feels a little overwhelmed....it has taken a lot of watching and praying for me and Troy to catch on to this but there is definitely a pattern developing. He has gotten into this terrible habit lately of trying to impress his friends by goofing around and joking and has gotten himself into some pretty serious trouble at home with it. Troy and I go back and forth a lot on how to deal with this but are constantly in prayer over this boy!!
Caleb is amazing sometimes. He is usually very content to just hang back behind the other two kids and keep kind of on the quiet side but lately at home the boy has just shined. He has taken to getting up earlier than everyone else and picking up around the house. He fixes his own breakfast, picks up the house, walks the dogs and has his 'quiet time'. He says his day just doesn't feel right if he 'don't get to the Lord first before everyone else'. I have woken up a few times to hear him in his morning routine and it's just so sweet!! It's hard to believe that my baby boy is ten now.
Us.......
Troy and I are both doing good too. Troy was honored with the opportunity to speak for the 'opening' part of Sunday school last week and he felt so blessed just to be allowed to speak in the Father's house that he has beamed ever since. He really struggles at work with some of the guys who aren't saved and behave so ugly toward him and having done that has really given him a boost in just the day to day stuff. I am so impressed with my husband and it has really blessed me to see how he has grown over the last year. I just keep praying that the Lord will make me a better wife for him (one that can keep up!!). We are both just really seeking God for his calling on our lives. It just feels like there is something we are supposed to be doing but neither one of us has a really clear idea. Every so often we think we have a clue but Troy isn't qualified to preach and so he thinks that disqualifies him from all sorts of other areas of ministry too. We'll just wait and see what the Lord has for us....I'm sure that we both have a lot of growing left to do before we are thrown into whatever work it is that we're supposed to do.
The home.....
I'm almost moved in....sort of, well maybe. But we will live here and eventually I'll find all of our stuff and get it organized (I hope). I know that things will slow down soon and I'll get to keep my home and in the meantime we'll just keep on having the wonderful adventure of trying to find our stuff without losing our tempers over it being lost in the first place. We have big plans for gardens and critters and even some decorating type stuff as soon as we get the time. I desperately need to get back into my little routine with the meal planning and such since we have been just terrible since the move with all of the busyness and it has cost us more money than I even want to think about.
That's really all I can type right now. I have a carpet to clean ( our lab was sick all night) and stuff to do before the meeting tonight. Sorry to ramble and not make much sense but this post was for me anyway....hopefully now that I've gotten some of that stuff out of my head it won't feel so cluttered in there. Whew!!! I have a lot to do so SEE YA!!!
My kids.....
Jessie -- still living with her baby's daddy's grandpa in a tiny little studio apartment but has managed to spend the money everyone has given her to help get a house on a new car and now the other not very old car that she has is sitting in the parking lot at her baby's daddy's grandpa's apartment. GRRRRRR. Do you ever just want to shake someone and remind them that they are way too old to be so irresponsible?
Josh -- doing wonderful. He is working constantly and keeps getting promotions, raises and more job offers. His graduation is June 4th and I know he is really ready to be finished with school. He isn't sure whether he will go right to college or not and to tell the truth I don't see any harm at all in him waiting to see what the Lord would have him to do before he dives into something else.
Tae, Jared, and Caleb -- almost done with school for this year!!! I ordered the tests for them today and will most likely get that done within the next few weeks. I know that they all still have some fairly serious weak spots (especially the boys with math) but we have a great plan for finishing our quest to get back on track before the official start of next year's schooling. They are all very very excited about the garden we have planned and getting some critters to keep here too.
Tae is growing into a wonderful young woman who has a real heart for the Lord. She is so sweet and helpful that I wonder sometimes what I ever did to deserve her....my precious little 'fred'. She still is very seriously interested in Mr. Puppy Love and he in her but they are waiting on the Lord and have both managed to seriously impress me and her daddy with the way they have chosen to handle this situation. We are just praying and praying that they will continue to just give it to God and do His will for their lives.
Jared is growing and growing and growing.....if grocery consumption was a contest boy would we be a blue ribbon family!!! The boy can eat!!! He has also turned into a pretty serious book worm and is rejoicing over having gotten his first library card since we moved to North Carolina.....the only down side is that the library didn't have any of the books that he wanted the most (biographies of great men of God and other books of that kind). Troy and I are trying to see what kind of book budget we can come up with for the kids for books like that and I am really blessed to have a wonderful sister in Christ who has an awesome book collection that she loves to share.
Our big concern with Jared right now is that he is really trying to run from God (again). He tends to do that when the Lord has given him a burden and he feels a little overwhelmed....it has taken a lot of watching and praying for me and Troy to catch on to this but there is definitely a pattern developing. He has gotten into this terrible habit lately of trying to impress his friends by goofing around and joking and has gotten himself into some pretty serious trouble at home with it. Troy and I go back and forth a lot on how to deal with this but are constantly in prayer over this boy!!
Caleb is amazing sometimes. He is usually very content to just hang back behind the other two kids and keep kind of on the quiet side but lately at home the boy has just shined. He has taken to getting up earlier than everyone else and picking up around the house. He fixes his own breakfast, picks up the house, walks the dogs and has his 'quiet time'. He says his day just doesn't feel right if he 'don't get to the Lord first before everyone else'. I have woken up a few times to hear him in his morning routine and it's just so sweet!! It's hard to believe that my baby boy is ten now.
Us.......
Troy and I are both doing good too. Troy was honored with the opportunity to speak for the 'opening' part of Sunday school last week and he felt so blessed just to be allowed to speak in the Father's house that he has beamed ever since. He really struggles at work with some of the guys who aren't saved and behave so ugly toward him and having done that has really given him a boost in just the day to day stuff. I am so impressed with my husband and it has really blessed me to see how he has grown over the last year. I just keep praying that the Lord will make me a better wife for him (one that can keep up!!). We are both just really seeking God for his calling on our lives. It just feels like there is something we are supposed to be doing but neither one of us has a really clear idea. Every so often we think we have a clue but Troy isn't qualified to preach and so he thinks that disqualifies him from all sorts of other areas of ministry too. We'll just wait and see what the Lord has for us....I'm sure that we both have a lot of growing left to do before we are thrown into whatever work it is that we're supposed to do.
The home.....
I'm almost moved in....sort of, well maybe. But we will live here and eventually I'll find all of our stuff and get it organized (I hope). I know that things will slow down soon and I'll get to keep my home and in the meantime we'll just keep on having the wonderful adventure of trying to find our stuff without losing our tempers over it being lost in the first place. We have big plans for gardens and critters and even some decorating type stuff as soon as we get the time. I desperately need to get back into my little routine with the meal planning and such since we have been just terrible since the move with all of the busyness and it has cost us more money than I even want to think about.
That's really all I can type right now. I have a carpet to clean ( our lab was sick all night) and stuff to do before the meeting tonight. Sorry to ramble and not make much sense but this post was for me anyway....hopefully now that I've gotten some of that stuff out of my head it won't feel so cluttered in there. Whew!!! I have a lot to do so SEE YA!!!
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