Busy Days

Early get up.  Exercises.  Bible time with the kids.

Do school with Joshua.

 

Defrost steak(arg.) & make Swiss Steak in the crockpot. 

Listen to Megan quote her verses. 

Encourage her to keep studying when she wants to give up. 

Eat a lunch which Elizabeth lovingly made for us.  Print coupons. 

Throw a snack together.  Make sure everyone has their books & clogging shoes. 

Fly out the door.

Piano lessons.

 

Sit, cut & sort coupons.  Write checks.

Go to mother-in-laws.  Return jars & pick up juice.

Go to the bank.  Get a SODA(first in a week!)

Drive home—turn crockpot down to low.

Drive to clogging.  Listen to LOUD stomping & music!

Sit & play with a cute niece or two.

Head home & do more studying with the girls.

Snarf supper(thank God for my crockpot).

Go to quiz practice & herd 30ish teens around.

Home.  Put apple butter in to jars. Bed.

Twice a month we have a REALLY long day of errands & lessons.  I am so thankful that I am able to be home to take my kids to the lessons for interests that they are pursuing.  It is tiring but I am glad I have the time, money & energy to get these days done.  In between all the work there is laughter, lessons & fun along the way.

Just Joshua

It seems silly to say I am thankful for my children.  Of course I am thankful for them.  But I need to say it about Joshua.  Some days I have to list why I am thankful for him in my head.  He drives me crazy.  A lot.  So here goes

I am thankful for his imagination.  I never know what is going on in his head.  Today he asked me what ignite was(although he knows).  Then he looked it up by himself in the dictionary just to prove that I wasn’t quite right.



I am thankful he is brave.

He loves to find a new cool bug, animal, or toad.

And pick it up. And show it up close to me.





I love that he is smart.

He buzzes through his school work so fast that I have a hard time keeping up with him.




I am thankful that he loves to play.

It keeps him busy after school is done.




I am thankful that he knows no strangers.

He will make lots of friends and lead them many places in life.

I am thankful that he tells me EVERYTHING.  I could be wondering instead.

But most of all I love & I am thankful for Joshua’s faces.

He is just Joshua.

              

Freedom is NOT Free

It is so easy to just NOT think.  We live day to day minding our own business and if we just DON’T think then everything is easy & flows along smoothly.

Unfortunately life isn’t like that.

I discovered that when we started to “do” school at home.  History wasn’t quite what I remembered from my years of school.  We started reading books that pointed to God’s hand in history.  We read books about famous Americans who listened to God’s leading and it changed their lives.  Wow I guess that is what we had done in homeschooling.  Were we making history?

There were so many people who really thought about how their lives should be lived.  They didn’t choose to just NOT think.  They listened and acted where they could make a difference.

Today is the first Tuesday in November.  I chose to act where I could today.  I voted and I am thankful that I am FREE and live in this wonderful country.  It seems like a small thing but it isn’t because I had to THINK and take action.  I hope that I am walking a life that shows my children how thankful I am for those who have gone before us to secure that freedom. 

Help my children to live lives that are always overflowing with thankfulness, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.                    Col. 2:7, Ephesians 5:20

30 Days of Thankfulness

Everything that surrounds us is a gift from God.  We wake each morning & breathe in and out all day because He allows it to happen.  It is so easy to get caught up in the day to day struggle of managing a home & being a mom, wife & friend.  I want to change that.

This month I am going to be posting on Facebook everyday something that I am thankful for.  Maybe if more people were thankful for what they have then our lives would be more focused on God.  There is so much to be thankful for and we don’t think about it very often.

Yesterday I was thankful for friends who share their children with me.  A friend helped me out by taking Elizabeth to town for a recital practice.  I kept her kids & the rest of mine.  They had a ball playing together & enjoyed some outside time in the leaves.  It was a great afternoon.

Today?  Well I am considering it before I post that later.

 

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. Psalm 3:5-6


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Lessons from the Ocean

God gives us perfect gifts we just have to look for them.

We’ve been staying in the Outer Banks, NC.  It is a vacation that we take every year for Steve’s continuing education.  This year it’s special because we’ve been married almost 20 years and we added some time to just enjoy being here.

I love the ocean. 

That doesn’t give magnitude to how much I enjoy being here.  I could live here but my friends and family drawn me back home.  We’ve been walking our stretch of beach each morning & evening.  As we go we look for shells as so many vacationers do.  There haven’t been many beautiful perfect ones but we do find bits and pieces with perfect colors.

These are the shells that have been beaten and battered until they don’t resemble the shape that they began as.  Sometimes life feels a bit like that.  That project you started didn’t turn out to be as wonderful as the vision in your head.  The direction you decided to take your business didn’t go well.  Parenting a precious child is always affected by sin and personal choices.

We’ve been searching for God’s will in our lives.  The direction we are travelling isn’t giving us joy or allowing us to know the freedom in knowing we are following God’s will.  My prayer lately has been “Lord show us.”  We are listening & know he will show us the way.

Just like this morning when I walked the beach alone.  Not something I like to do—I’d rather be with Steve.  I was up earlier than the last few days—again I’d rather sleep in.  But as I walked I saw that the tide was high.  There are sections of the beach that are rocky and sharp to walk over here.  I avoid them usually but with the high tide I would have to be in the really soft sand—not good for walking.

Then I saw them.  As I prayed “Lord show us”.  I came upon one after another.  Beautiful.  Perfect.  Not broken.  Precious gifts of shells.  I literally couldn’t pick them all up to bring back. 

So I left them for others to find.

Thank you Lord for showing me you can do anything.  Please continue to show me.