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PRAYER FOR SANITY

Pray for Sanity for Amber and I. We're doing something crazy this week for Spring Break. Stay tuned for details coming next weekend!!!!!

How God Works

God has blessed me so much! So how can I give back to him in return....A few weeks ago at church I felt God tugging at me to use my sewing as a resource to minister to others. My business is steady and I have time to throw together a dress here or there out of inexpensive fabric. The problem was....where do I send these dresses...who could use these....

So Friday after I picked up sweet cuddly girl from school I saw a sign for an estate sale. I thought I'd go check it out and see what was there....you never know what you might find. Well I recognized the vehicle in the yard and knew I had to go in and say hi! As we were talking, she asked if I had gotten an email from someone about sundresses. I said YES I can help! Problem is she needed them by Sunday. She was going overseas to visit a relative and wanted to take some sundresses to the girls in the neighborhood. She won't be there long so I'll have to find someone else to ship them to but I now have someone to send them to.

I went home and went through my inventory. I found 2 dresses that I had made that I knew wouldn't sell and a few of sweet cuddly girls dresses. It felt good to give away some of my hard work knowing that it might bless a child.

Needless to say if I wouldn't have seen that sign I would have never had this opportunity.

Lemonade

Sweet Boy’s first school play was this week. I ended up making 4 costumes. Here they are. They weren’t great but it worked. I was kind of strapped for time on a couple of them.

The play was called “Lemonade” and was about finding Joy in everyday life through the ups and downs. It was a good for both the adults and the kids. My sweet boy was Humpty Dumpty….boy was that a doosie to make!

Here are 3 of the costumes I made...

Shepherding

I was visiting with a friend the other day about our kids and how hard is raising them. I know it doesn't get any easier. She mentioned a book and said it really changed the way she thought about parenting.
I've read the first couple of chapters and can't wait to jump in deeper. I've never thought of parenting as shepherding but it makes a lot of sense. Some of the first thoughts in the book were about how we parent to take care of behavior but not the heart. The heart is what we should care about as parents and if the heart is in good shape behavior should follow.

Also, authority is mentioned in the first couple chapters and how parents have lost a sense of authority with their kids. I see it in my kids and I see it in kids at my sons school. They just don't listen. I'm hoping it's not to late but I've started talking to sweet boy about how Jesus would handle situations and I can see he is really grasping it.

We had a situation come up Tuesday. Sweet boy and 2 of his best friends were playing and they told him that they weren't his friends anymore. Well of course this hurt his feelings but I just blew it off. Well his teacher said something to me about it and then one of the moms asked if I knew what was going on. Come to find out sweet boy told other boy he was mad...well he was mad at him b/c he was told they didn't want to be his friend (by the way it was over a stick). Well other boy had forgotten all about day before just like most kids and didn't know why sweet boy was mad. I talked to sweet boy today and told him that Jesus loved people regardless of what they said or did to him. People were mean to Jesus and said nasty hateful things to him so we should in turn just love them like Jesus would. He got it and I think things are fine now....The kindergarten drama...what are we in for in Jr High and these are boys we are talking about.

Has anyone read this? Let me know what you think.

MY DAY

Phone rings at 4:22 AM....have to go to ER.
Home by 5:30 AM
Everything was OK!!!!!
Thought about going to gym on way home from ER..not going to happen.
Take things to consignment sale an hour away
Eat good Mexican food
Go to Hobby Lobby and Hancocks
Stopped at road side produce stand and bought two beautiful Kimberly ferns
Pick up A
Go to friends house to discuss bible study for sons
Get home at 6:30 pm
Fix supper for family
Watch NCIS while knitting and eating dinner (not at same time)
Ready for bed but it's only 8:15


How was your day?

Sermon I needed to here

I love my church...the people are wonderful, the preaching is wonderful and it's just about everything we could have hoped for in a church. Our church consists of 3 different pastors and that rotate preaching or as I would say teaching each week. We even have guest teachers quite often too. Several are religion professors at one of the local universities. It's been a huge blessing! It's the first time in along time that we feel like we have gotten meat and not fluff. This is one of my favorite pastors we have ever had at our previous church. It's been about 5 yrs since he's been our pastor and he was so wonderful as a pastor and friend!

This morning, Jackson preached from Amos and how God doesn't want just part of us he wants all of us and he wants us to not be half hearted but whole hearted in our worship and in all we do. He talked about the poverty level of the world and it broke my heart to think about all the people in the world who don't have food. He also gave figures on how the US spends their money and how much we give to world hunger etc and it was astonishing....which I know it's the US government and who knows what they are spending our $$ on.

He talked about conservation and how we need to conserve. I'm not a very GREEN person but I'm trying. We don't have many options for recycling in our community but this past week I called to see what they would pick up....Newsprint and Aluminum Cans. Well we don't drink aluminum cans so that leaves Newsprint. I'm going to check out another option.

How can we help?? He mentioned Compassion International along with World Hunger through the Southern Baptist Convention. I'm going to check those out. It would only take a couple of times eating out to pay for a month of food for someone. We are so RICH by many peoples standards. Maybe not by US standards but by World standards we are very very wealthy.

Another thing I thought about doing is making dresses to send to 3rd World Countries....that's a way to use my talent. Anyone know of organizations that do that?

How can you help? What ways do you conserve?

The Lazies...

Oh how I would just love to lay down on the couch for just a few and snuggle in the blankets...It's 40 degrees out (yesterday it was 80) and rainy...just one of those days.

I'm trying so hard not to be lazy. I have so much to do...

• 3 costumes
  
• sheep
• cat
• Humpty Dumpty
• Get items ready for consignment sale
• make a lot of hairbows
• Maintain house
• Update books and file sales tax report

I know it doesn't look like a lot but right now it feels like a lot. So how am I dealing with this? This verse from Proverbs...

"She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness"

Gatorade

My son was "Star Student" this week in his class. Basically that means he gets to take pictures and some of his favorite things to school to show. I packed the pictures. He packed his sack of other things....that won't happen again and this is why...

Here is the email that I got from his teacher today...


Do you know what he shared today with the class as part of his Star Student stuff???????

An empty gatorade bottle....I was like, can you tell us whey you brought that to share....................are you sitting down????

He said, if you drink 4 bottles of it it will turn your poop GREEN!!!!

Only your child!


So now it's turning into a science project....Next weekend he has to drink Red Gatorade instead of blue gatorade. What's a mom to do?

Can I do it?????

Well several of my friends have been taking time to UNPLUG. Well I'm going to do it or at least try to do it for the whole weekend. That's going to be a challenge for me. ((Amber please call me and let me know who is on the team))

I've been reading some books about the Amish by Wanda Brunnsteter. They live such a simple life...no computers, no tvs, no cars and no electricity. Now I don't think I could do without a lot of these everyday necessities in our eyes but I'm going to challenge myself to UNPLUG. So friends if you need me, you'll have to pick up the phone!

Why do I walk with tall people?

I haven't felt well this week and wasn't going to go to the gym today and didn't. My friend S called today cause she knew I needed to talk (sweet little boy was in trouble at school again--twice in one week-not normal for him). I went to her house and we started our walk that includes lots of hills and we walked and talked and walked and talked....it was really good! We got done and I realized what time it was...I couldn't believe we walked that long so I decided to drive it to see how far we walked...we walked 4 miles of hills. Wow...for those that know me that's amazing. It helps to have someone to walk with.

We lived in the most wonderful neighborhood and moved to a new neighborhood (bigger house) 2 yrs ago. We lived on a circle that was a 1/2 mile around. I had great walking buddies and we'd walk quite a bit...Miss you guys!

My husband asked me tonight why all my walking buddies are tall....I have no idea but it makes me work harder!

I'm 5'2" (that a stretch too)
S is at least 5'8"
K is at least 5'10
Sh is at least 5'10 and
my gym buddy L is close to 6'
Also my roommate in college was close to 6'

I love my tall friends even if I feel about 4 ft next to them!

Springtime in Arkansas

I love Spring in Arkansas! This one is for you....Meredith and Stephanie!

I've had to drive through campus a few times over the past several weeks and I love how it blooms so fast. I'll probably make a drive through a couple more times this week just because!

UUGH

My friend Amber just posted that her son was sick today. Well now mine is!!! He had complained of his stomach hurting at school. I went to check on him and he seemed ok and I figured it was because he hadn't eaten breakfast this morning. (I'm trying to get him to make his own choices)

Well I picked him up, we went to the library. He said he was ready to go because he had to go poop. Yeah, I know too much info but most of you are moms I'm sure and understand. Well I get home we talk and begin to realize that he probably needed to poop all day and that was his problem. (He will only go at home!)

Next thing I know he is tossing his cookies....There goes perfect attendance and MY Wednesday afternoon. Oh well, I shouldn't be so selfish but I had a lot planned for tomorrow. Nothing that can't wait for my sweet little boy!

Cleaning Out

BEFORE







Since I've been home (almost a year now) I said I would work on getting things organizing, cleaning out, throwing out, etc. I've done a couple of projects but now enough. I can't remember where I saw something similar to this with the baskets and spices in the drawer but I loved it. I didn't have quite enough room in the drawer so I put the spices I use all the time in the drawer and put the rest up so I can get to them easier. I had duplicates of stuff I never use....I don't know why. I feel like I accomplished something today...YEAH!




AFTER