Crystal Wetherholt

Crystal is a very dear friend of mine. After much anticipation on my part, she has finally gotten her new website up and running. Crystal is a wonderful mother and example of godly womanhood. She speaks with the gift of God on the topics of mothering and godly womanhood. I am excited to see that she is speaking nearby in May and can't wait to be there. I encourage you to check out her website and blogs (linked on her website!) and see where God is taking her fantastic ministry.

Maybe a Lamb

Yesterday was a lamb day. We enjoyed it profusely. After lunch we went for Little Bear's first walk. It was 60 degrees and sunny with almost no wind at all. We walked for a while before he went to sleep. I am glad that he was able to enjoy his first "outside" experience. Before that he had only been outside long enough to go from house to car, car to store and back again.

Greg walked Sadie on her leash. They ran for almost a mile. She was more excited to be outside than the rest of us I think. Lee rode his bicycle. We really enjoyed ourselves. Next time I will try to remember to take pictures.

Today is a rainy day. I know that we need rain as well as sunshine, but it is such a bummer after such a beautiful day. I hope that it is short lived and spring sunshine returns again soon.

Out Like a Lamb

The old saying is that if March comes in like a lion it will go out like a lamb. I think that we can classify the ice storm during the first week of March as "in like a lion". I am having trouble classifying this last week though. What is up with SNOW all day on Easter???? And does that mean we will have snow for the next 7 Sundays????? Please someone help me figure this out!

While my mind ponders the mysteries of the world, my body works. The house was in such a state of dissaray that I couldn't even think. I have pretty much finished the Emergency House Clean-up posted by Candy and linked to by Crystal. The kitchen looks better. The main bathroom looks better. The rest of the house......not so good. But the laundry is folded so that has to be worth something. When I get done here, I am going to pick up some and then call it a day.

The main focus of the past few days is the revival being held at our church this week. We started with services last night. I think that it was a smashing success. I was honored to be asked to lead the music part of the service. This is the first time that I have done this for a revival. The topic is Restoring God's Church with John Blackmore speaking. Last night he urged us to consider what I will be willing to give up to bring others to know Christ. That is a big question! I have trouble coming out of my comfort zone. I want others to know about Christ, but what do my actions show? This is something that will require prayer over the next few days (maybe weeks!) to sort out in my mind. I am excited to hear tonight's message!!!!

Greg celebrated his 8th birthday on Friday. He got fishing gear, a metal detector and lots and lots of $$$$$ in the form of cash and gift cards. I don't remember ever having as much money as he does when I was 8!!!! Happy Birthday sweetie! We love you!

Well, I guess that I will go for now. Please let me know if you can help me out on any of life's questions......I will be waiting for someone to figure it out!

A Day in our Homeschool

Candy has been posting about how her homeschool works and encouraged us to share what a day in our homeschool is like. It isn't exciting, but here it is!

We get up around 7-8 a.m. It kinda depends on what the plans are for that day and how late we were out the night before. Days after taekwondo classes usually start later than other days.
We begin with Bible. Right now we are reading through the book of Luke. Sometimes we split the reading, sometimes I read to them. Then we share prayer requests and praises and have a time of prayer. I think that this really helps start our day off on the right foot. Then the boys take turns taking baths while the other starts school. Then they switch. I limit bath time to 15 minutes, otherwise they would stay in there all day.

In the morning, both boys must complete the following:
spelling
language lesson
math
latin
handwriting
writing (Lee - once a week)
reading practice

They are allowed to do these things in whatever order they choose. Some of them they can always do on their own (handwriting) and others always need my supervision (reading practice). Most of them vary from day to day depending on the assignment. During this time I also work on laundry and try to either play with the baby or put him down for a nap. He has decided that he doesn't always want to take the morning nap.

After their subjects are done then they are required to read for 30 mins. We alternate between a book of their choosing and a book of my choosing. When that is done they are free until after lunch. They will usually get most of their chores out of the way for the day and then play with Baby Bear for me while I get lunch fixed.

Norman leaves for work and then we commence history and science studies. We also read some poetry at this time. They do any notebooking, mapwork, timeline work and also complete lyrical life science at this time. Hopefully Baby Bear is asleep at this time as well, but if he isn't we just roll him in with what we are doing. He plays really well in his walker so that helps.

The boys have the afternoon free. Depending on the day of the week we may be going to taekwondo. On those days we also usually go to the library. The boys love the new library! If it is a "stay at home day" then they play outside, in their rooms or work on crafts. Right now, Greg has a study on turtles that he and I are working on during his free time.

We try to have read-aloud time during the evenings when we are home. This doesn't always happen. I need to be more diligent about it.

There is our current school day. I look forward to seeing how everyone else works their days!

Are you a Hearer or a Doer?

Are you a hearer or a doer? Am I?

That is the question that I asked myself this evening as I sat down to the computer. I sat down with the express purpose of looking (once again) for the perfect homekeeping system. I am absolutes sure that it is out there. I look for it about twice a month. As I sat down, it occurred to me that I have read about every practical homekeeping article out there (although if you have a new one, I would love to read it!) and tried every organizational system. You would think with all of this knowledge under my belt that my house/household/schooling would be in ship-shape condition.

Sadly, that is not the case.

I am here to admit that I am a hearer/reader/seeker. I am, in fact, NOT a doer. I don't tend to put the things that I learn into practice. I will sit and read about homekeeping/organizational systems. I will make up detailed cleaning rotations and charts. I will delegate jobs to the children. However, I don't follow any of those things. I do what I NEED to do to get by and no more. I am barely keeping my head above water. As I look around my house right now, I stress the BARELY part. How embarrassing!

This tendency of mine tends to follow into my spiritual life. Jesus warns us not to be hearers of the Word only, but doers also. I can't begin to count the times I have noted in my journal or Bible something that I think God is saying to me. I can count on ONE hand how many times I have actually followed through with what God wants me to do. That is truly sad.

Right now, I am challenging myself to be a DOER. I am going to keep a list of the things I need to DO and keep myself accountable to doing them. Homekeeping, homeschooling, ministry are all included here. Most importantly though is my spiritual life. From today on, that will be my main priority.

I urge any of you who read this to challenge yourself to be DOERS, in all areas of your life. Make this a priority in your spiritual life. Post about what your neglected area is and how you are working to improve it. Please leave me a comment! We can encourage each other!

200th Post

I just wanted to note (for anyone that cares) that this is my 200th post :) I don't have anything fascinating to say though!

Family Emergencies

I am praising the Lord today as we are recovering from a family emergency. My youngest brother Daniel was in a severe motorcycle accident on Friday evening. He was transfered from our local hospital to a level 1 trauma center north of here. It seems that God has choosen to bless him with a full recovery! He is still a patient there, but has become fully conscious, and has only a broken clavical and road rash to show for the experience. I am so thankful for our friends and church family as they "prayed" us through this time. I know that I couldn't have made it without them!

I am still trying to catch up on sleep. This week is full, with dog grooming and children's doctor's appointments. Next week will be a 3-day revival at our church. I was honored to be asked to lead the music. I haven't ever led music for a revival before so I am anxious to be pleasing to God. I hope and pray that he will lead me in the selection of music and appropriate speech.

I will try to update with some scripture that I have been reading lately. There are many great gems I have discovered and applied to my life over the past couple of weeks!

PJs and Coffee

I was just wondering if there was anyone else out there in internet land who was chronically drinking COLD coffee?

I swear that it isn't my fault, maybe I have a touch of ADHD, but it seems like every time I get a new cup of hot coffee something happens, I set it down, and when I come back to it, it is cold...and then we go around again. Lukewarm coffee isn't very good either, btw. I know that mornings are so busy around here and that is part of the problem, but that is precisely why I NEED the coffee :) And to top things off, the last 2 days I haven't managed a shower before 10 a.m. Today is was after 11 a.m. It seems that the boys don't mind that I am doing school in my pj's......in fact, sometimes they are in their underwear.....so I guess that it all works out.

It is a blessing that we very rarely have visitors :)

So Very Busy

I don't know what is going on around here. I feel like I am barely treading water! I seem to be sooo busy but I can't really think of anything that has been added to my schedule to make me feel that way.

On Monday the boys and I went to the library. We live in between 2 towns. We hold an in-residence library card to one of them. Unfortunately it is the town that we almost never go to....(((sigh))). Recently, I discovered that we could have our library card stickered with the bar code of the library in the town that we ARE in 3-4 times a week. Praise God!!! And this library is a lot nicer than the other one (although in its defense, library #1 is in a slightly smaller town). So we are excited and spent 1.5 hours at the library before taekwondo Monday evening. Just hanging out. Cause we could :)

Yesterday I worked like an ant with school, laundry and housework. My parents returned home from their FL trip on Monday (yeah, guess what they were doing during the ice storm?????). So we went to their house to visit Tuesday afternoon.
I was finally able to check email and blogs at 8 p.m. on Tuesday evening. The first time since Saturday.

Today I was busy again with school and housework and laundry. The busyness was compounded by the fact that Little Bear has spent most of the day screaming his little head off and refusing to take a nap. That is not conducive to cleaning. But I have managed and even have a minute online. Then I need to fold the last load of laundry.

Cloth diapers are going great. I don't really know what all the fuss is about. It really isn't any different and I can just hear the money hitting the bank every time I DON'T use a disposable. With the price of gas and groceries going up EVERY DAY, I am relieved to be able to save some money somewhere.

I am planning for school next year. It doesn't look like Sonlight is going to be in the budget....as sad as that makes me. But I am having fun putting things together from Hands of a Child. They have a lot of very interesting Project Packs for a wide spread of age groups. I joined their Super Membership Club and have already downloaded 3 project packs that just happen to be for things that we were wanting to study!!!!! God is great.

I am hoping to find some time to knit. It just isn't working right now. That's ok. I know that this season of life will pass so quickly!

Back In the Swing of Things

I am slowly getting back into the swing of things.

So far today I have:
washed/dried/folded several loads of laundry (I still have at least 2 loads left to do)
decluttered the kitchen table, coffee table and breakfast bar
put away some of our extra grocery purchases
swept the kitchen and dining room
loaded and ran the dishwasher and handwashed the rest
had the boys do their chores
check email
made lunch (fried shrimp and cajun rice)
decluttered baby stuff
picked up living room

We are having chicken and noodles, mashed potatoes, biscuits and fruit for supper.

I also made some phone calls and scheduled Little Bear's 4 month doctor's appt. At this point though it will really be an almost 5 month appointment :)

I am going to go do some reading, bible study and maybe watch some TV before time to start supper. We are having a stay-at-home day. It will be a relief after our hectic week!

Ice Storm

What a few days these have been!!!!

Monday evening an ice storm started. It continued all night and into the morning on Tuesday. At 11 a.m. Tuesday we lost our power. Norman had to go to work so the boys and I hunkered down in the warmest room of the house (an interior bedroom). At 5 p.m. I called our electric company only to be told it could be 48 hours before power returned. We were still warm in that bedroom, but the rest of the house was getting cold, quick. So I opted to go into town to my mil's house before it got any colder.

We just got our power on today (Thursday) at around 11 a.m. (exactly 48 hours). We stayed at mil's until around 5 to let the house warm up. We are very blessed that although it was very cold in the house our water pipes didn't freeze. We were blessed to have somewhere warm to go. I feel very blessed that we were able to come home this evening and sleep in our beds!!!! You have never seen 5 people (and 1 dog) so happy to come home to our messy home :) We appreciate it (and electricity) so very very much now!!!!!

I have a lot of catching up to do (dishes and laundry are going as we speak) but I am very thankful for our many blessings!!!

Cloth Diapers Day 2

I purchased a lot of all-in-one cloth diapers from a Craig's list posting for $50. This was an answer to prayer regarding my contemplation of cloth diapering. The diapers are very nice and as easy to use as disposables. The package included 18 diapers, extra inserts, diaper cover wraps and some flushable liners. Dh gave his consent to the purchase and helped me set up a dry diaper pail.
So far, everything has went well. We had a leak after a 4 hour nap yesterday morning, but it could have been much worse and that was only the 2nd cloth diaper we had used :) So we are still learning. He slept in a disposable last night, but tonight we will use cloth and see what happens. I think that it will go ok cause he isn't a heavy wetter at night.

Course, this morning the dryer died. We knew that it was ill, but this morning when I went to turn it on, it flashed blue and the nob dropped off in my hand. That can't be good. Dh has already repaired this dryer multiple times (it is almost 10 years old). I am going to try to just get by without telling dh for as long as possible. Things like this tend to cause him anxiety. Hopefully spring will show up quickly and I will be able to hang clothes outside again. Then there will be no problem! Today, it is still very cold and the ground is muddy from all the rain that we have had. I think that slopping through mud to get to the clothes line might be counter-productive......so I hung up the first load of clothes on hangers in the boy's bathroom and above the washing machine. After dh goes to work at noon I will do the same with the 2nd load. This evening, I will wash a load of diapers and hang them up in the morning when some of the other clothes are dry. I will make this work! They say that "where there is a will, there is a way".....we are just going to find the way!
And honestly it could be a lot worse. We have a working, almost new washing machine (it would be much worse to live without a washing machine!), running water (hot and cold), working heat (my mil's furnace was broke for over a week in bitterly cold weather while waiting for a replacement this week), plenty of food (scored great deals at Kroger yesterday) and disposable diapers if I have trouble keeping up with the laundry for a while. We are truly blessed indeed!