"The Search"

We are in the market for a small wire nativity set for the yard. You know the small ones (not life-size) that have lights wrapped around them? Has anyone seen any during their excursions? I have checked Wal-mart and Lowe's. Both places looked at me like I was from Mars when I mentioned I wanted a Nativity set. I was promptly told at both places that they have lots of Santas. Wal-mart stated they decided not to carry any nativity scenes for the yard this year in hopes of being politically correct. Somehow this doesn't surprise me. I guess that means they removed all secular books, Catholic candles, and Stars of David. I doubt it. They just don't get it. I really tried not to get angry. The poor cashier really has nothing to do with it, but I came home depressed anyway. Depression really is suppressed anger. Wow.

Goals for next year (that I might possibly be able to control)

• go on more dates with my husband
• spend more time with my kids on purpose
• paint the living room & upstairs hallways
• run in a 5k
• stay in budget every single month (oh, that would be awesome)
• shop more garage sales

I am really looking forward to our anniversary. We are planning to stay downtown and see the Radio City Rockettes. Wouldn't that be awesome? They are coming to austin! I'd love to take a carriage ride...go for a walk...eat dinner somewhere...just spend time together. I need a break so badly, and I really need time alone with my husband. 13 years! And I love him even more than I did then. Every year we talk over our yearly goals, so I have to start thinking early in order to be ready.

THINGS I'M THANKFUL FOR....

Husband
Friends
Family
Smell
Sight
Hearing
Health
Running
Walking
Laughing
Children
Parents
Faith
Country
School
Choices
Trees
Leaves
Cami
Grass
Skies
Sunsets
Paints
Paper
Watercolor
Brushes
Pencils
Erasers
FOOD
Clothing
Medicine
Vitamins
God, I thank you for all these things and so much more! Someone once said, "What if God took away everything we didn't thank Him for? What would we have left?"
Everyday, we have hundreds of things to be thankful for that we didn't think of yesterday!

Homeschooling

All the kids got new math books today. Everyone is so excited! Blaine is by far the most excited. He has been looking for his giraffe book for weeks now. In fact when I showed him on the computer that there was another math book after his, he sat down and finished 10 lessons! He's quite an over-achiever, praise the Lord! He insists on reading an entire reader in one sitting (the ones that are meant to be read in about 1 week or more). He is so different from his sisters. Whew. I just hope it stays that way. This week he learned how to read words with long vowel sounds. Sniff. Sniff.

About a month ago I officially started the kids on their first spelling program. Elizabeth's spelling was so atrocious, I knew it was past time. Someone gave me the $75 curriculum I had wanted to purchase but didn't have the money for. Isn't God good? I've had it for almost 10 months (ugh), but there are about 150 pages (no kidding) to read before you start. Is there any wonder now why I waited so long? Finally, I just asked my friend to summarize for me. So far, Elizabeth has cried every day. {That's been fun.} So, Micah and I decided to change her method. This really cool program only requires the students to study the words they DON'T know, rather than an entire list that they may or may not know. So, now she gets to study the entire list. She started complaining today, and you know for the first time it really didn't bother me. I just told her it didn't affect me because she cried the other way, too, and this was the way we were going to do it from now on. It was so freeing to have this talk with micah last night and to realize it was okay to do things differently. I suppose she feels embarrassed if she misses a word and feels she hasn't had a chance to ever know it. Well, now she has a chance.

I have this pre-conceived idea of how I want our school to run, but I am learning I must let go of that. She in particular is really good at helping me to do just that. Nothing ever comes out the way I planned it to! Did that sound like a screaming fit???

Rebecca has been asked to take gymnastics twice a week and thus start competing. Last week she learned how to get on the bar the way the gymnasts do at the Olympics. I was so proud of her!

Elizabeth helped her friend choreograph a dance that will be performed at a nursing home by all the older co-op girls. I can't wait to see it! She is also taking a hip-hop class, and I just love her teacher! She is this cute little thing. She teaches 5th grade at an elementary school and bursts through the doors on Friday evening full of energy. She's African-American and really good at motivating the girls. Elizabeth loves it and is quite good at it, too.

And then I have to brag on Blaine one more time. Our boy threw the pass that got the winning touchdown for his flag football team! We were beaming with joy!

Toaters and Toasts

Can you tell I'm bored? I keep blogging! Please do not feel obligated to read everything, just peruse. Saturday morning my toaster caught on fire! I put a piece of toast in, left and went to check my email. Suddenly, the smell wafted upstairs, and I raced downstairs in time to see the toaster oven engulfed in flames. How could I so easily forget what I was doing? The knob has been broken for quite some time, making the toaster stay on until you unplug the whole thing. That did it for me. We are now the proud owners of a Cuisinart, lovely normal toaster. I got it at 20% off thanks to my friend (see my Nourishing blog for the whole story).

Saturday evening we were invited to a wedding shower for his boss. The invitation read:

219 West
Austin, Texas

I thought the people were kind of weird not to put "Avenue" or even a zip code. I don't know, it just looked funny. I googled early in the week, proud that I was ahead of things with "directions". That night we hired a babysitter, dressed up a little and headed downtown for a night of fun. We assumed it was at the hostess house. Wouldn't you? We drove down West Avenue only to have it dead-end into an abyss of darkness. Surely...surely...these people know where they live. We turned around and drove in the other direction. We checked the iphone for directions one more time. We stopped, and micah asked for directions (a miracle in itself!). She said, I don't think that's a street name, I think that's a place. At this point we are 20 minutes late for "dinner" for a boss who likes everyone on time, every time. We see some friends from church by "coincidence". They pray for us to be a beacon of light and to find this crazy place.

Micah realizes it's a bar, and calls his boss (upon my urging) for directions. His crazy friend, mark, answers. I can hear him yelling into the phone, drunk with loud music blaring behind him. Oh boy, this is going to be fun. My palms start sweating and I wonder if I really want to go. I'm picturing some crazy gay bar or worse...I wouldn't put it passed any of them. But surely the bride-to-be wouldn't stand for such nonsense. I hope? His friend manages to give him the cross streets, but we wonder if he has any idea what he is talking about. We drive around, find a parking place on the street (whew) and look up, there is 219 West. It's a nice little place that I might actually go back to some time. They have great appetizer type snacks and coke. You can't go wrong with that, and you can sit outside and see a bustling downtown. We were downstairs in this little basement type room, crammed in like sardines. While his friend is crazy and desperately in need of Jesus, he managed to get us there, and we managed to have a really good time. I just pray that whatever little ray of light we may have shed, God could burst through their hearts and do a good work.

Things I'm Learning

We have been mentoring a pre-engagement couple for about 7 months now. They are so wonderfully sweet, and so desperately wanting to do things right so that they have a great marriage. But for a while now Micah and I have been sensing that they need to put Jesus first. "Seek first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added unto you." I mean you can read all the right books, put all the principles in place, say all the right things, and still end up in divorce. We by no means have it all together, nor do we always put Christ first. But we aim to. We so desperately need to present this to them in a gentle, loving way. Pray for us. "He is before all things, and in him all things hold together." Colossians 1:17

"For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." Colossians 1:9-13

What have I learned from all this? When you have to teach someone something, you are always forced to completely understand it...to turn it over...to mull it over inside and out...to truly know it. Otherwise it is obvious that you have no idea what you are talking about! Whether it be fractions or marriage or Christ I aim to know my subject and be transparent.

We have the privilege at church of getting to know 20 other couples who also mentor married couples, pre-engagement, and engagement. Some of them have been doing it for 15 years! Some of them have been going to Grace for 30 years! That astounds me. I can't imagine being anywhere for that long. But I was so amazed last night listening to them. Their hearts are truly incredible. They desire nothing less than to know Christ and to point people in that direction. I have learned that to truly have a great marriage you must lose all selfishness, pride, and haughty thinking. You must truly give it all away. I have loved reading the book "Created to Be His Helpmeet". Our church has not recommended it, and many don't like it. I'm somewhere in that category, too. It is an incredibly hard book to read, and I don't completely agree with her on everything. I won't ever be able to do everything in the book, and I don't think I ever want to. But what is great about it is that she sees marriage as a ministry, an opportunity to become more Christ-like, and an opportunity to serve your husband and she gives examples of how to do that. Not many people have the guts to do that. It is strong, but in this day and age I think it is what many of us need to hear. Or, at least I do.

Blaine is asleep on the couch with "Cars" playing. He has fever. Rebecca is lying down in my room watching "Belle". I am ready for bed. Do you ever just wish things could be normal? I am trying not to complain b/c I know things are worse for so many other people.

Yesterday I realized that at the end of the school year Rebecca will no longer be in an elementary class at church, ever again. She will be moving up to orange dots which is the pre-teen class at church. What?!? She's way too young for that! Isn't she? What happened to my baby? And Elizabeth will be in 7th grade!?! I need some time to adjust to all of this. I don't like it at all.

Threw My Back Out

Yep. Never done that before. So, I'll have to follow Micah in the ranks of twice daily back exercises. You would think....

"The United States had its own civil war crisis that threatened to destroy the nation. President Abraham Lincoln, sensing the critical need for God's help, proclaimed a national day of fasting with these words...
'We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God who made us! It behooves us, then to humble ourselves before the offended power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.'" (From The Rebirth of America. The Arthur S. DeMoss Foundation, page 151.)
(Both quotes taken from Supernatural Prayer and Fasting by Richard Booker, page 162.)

VOTE!!!

If you haven't gotten your tailbone out there yet, you better get out there and VOTE on Tuesday! And you better vote for mccain or I will puke. If you need more convincing than that, just go to youtube and find some of the stupid things the other guy believes. And let's all pray for mercy for our country. Honestly, we deserve obama , but I am praying that our country will turn and repent of it's horrible ways. Lord, forgive us for aborting more than 50 million babies since 1973. And please do not allow a man into the white house that will encourage more lives to be taken. Micah watched a youtube today with the question about abortion. McCain didn't bat an eye. He said, from the moment of concepetion a baby is a person. Obama stumbled around and couldn't figure out what to say. "You see...it's a very personal...a very spiritual...it has to do with when the spirit...and when the physical...and if my daughters make a mistake I don't want them punished with a baby..." Oh, puke.

Well, now you know how I feel. But if you vote otherwise, I will never know and will always love you. Just vote!

Thankfully, I ran for the past two days. I was so out of shape! How could this happen in just one week!?! Last Friday I ran 1 1/2 miles. I have resigned myself to being happy with 3 minutes of running, 2 minutes of walking for 2 miles. Tomorrow I will try for 3 miles. I was able to complete the whole 4 mile circuit in 1 hour. I was pleased as punch with that.

It's amazing how down on ourselves we can get. I had convinced myself this morning (and probably still believe slightly) that I never really was in shape. Micah encouraged me greatly by firmly stating that indeed I was. At least someone thought so, and it was the most important someone.

After all, what is the purpose of being in shape? To live longer? To live better? To see more? To do more? I must have purpose. I must see something greater than just hitting the road, watching miles pass day after day.

Overall, I feel it is very spiritual. I feel I am doing what I can to take care of the temporary temple of the Holy Spirit. I am motivated to do more, to see more, and to care for others more when I take care of myself. I want to live into old age, not with disease and crippled, but with life and vitality. I want to be like the 90 year old man I see running the roads with me. I want my grandchildren to aspire to run as I do. And why? Because this country has too many people on the couch with nothing to do. No purpose, no dignity, and no self-concept of how wonderful they really are. For me, running, stretching, and strength training remind me that I am worth taking care of. What goes in my mind, what comes out of my mouth, and how I spend my time needs to be the very best.

Matthew 15:16"Are you still so dull?" Jesus asked them. 17"Don't you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? 18But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man 'unclean.' 19For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20These are what make a man 'unclean'; but eating with unwashed hands does not make him 'unclean.' "

Running

I tried to run. I want to run. It hurt. And it still hurts....
I am trying not to be frustrated.