Praise God - Finances

We have been blessed three times this week when it comes to finances! Opportunities have all of a sudden come Hubby's way! He agreed to do some interior work for a lawyer in town as trade for him making a will for us. Well, yesterday Hubby stopped to give back the building key, and he handed Hubby a check for $300. He said that Hubby's work was worth more than the will and he will still do the will also!!!

Also, an elderly lady friend of ours drove out by her country property and realized all the junk that had been left there. She asked Hubby to load it all up and take it to the landfill. Well, he found someone to take the metal, someone else to take the pallettes, and someone else to take the broken landscaping blocks. He had a little garbage to pick up, but not enough to take to the landfill. She had someone drive by and saw how nice it looked. She gave him a check on Sunday for $200.

Two checks this week that we didn't expect! And payday is this Thursday with overtime of around $160. He usually is not allowed overtime unless there is an emergency on Saturday, well a watermain broke and he had to stay at work to make sure the chillers kept running until the city got it fixed.

God is so good, this will be a huge help in getting us out of debt.

Free Bar of Soap By True Vine Soap

Fall Ya’ll Bloggy Giveaway
Free Give Away: A bar of my favorite soap from True Vine Soap

You chose between Fragrance-Free Calendula or Baby Oatmeal & Lavendar

How to enter: Just leave a comment under this post with your choice of soap. Contest is open until 6pm Pacific Time Saturday November 4. A random drawing will chose the winner and I will post the winner Monday Nov. 5!!! I will order the soap and have it shipped directly to you!

Important: Contest is open to US and Canada only.

Good luck!

Super Saving Saturday-My Shopping-My Goal

To see what Super Saving Saturday is all about visit Crystal at http://www.moneysavingmom.com/ .

My goal: To spend $60 a week on groceries for my family of 6 (2 adults, 3 big kids, 1 toddler). This is going to have to be an average of 2 weeks as that is how my hubby gets paid. Our budget up until this last 2 weeks was $60 per week for food plus $30 per week for paper, soaps, cleaners, etc. None of this includes our meat as we buy that in bulk twice a year. I intend to fit all of this into our new goal of $60 per week (all groceries plus some left over for the meat purchase)

Yeah! Goal met this two weeks. Spend $75.40 last week and $41.89 this week. Total $117.29. Left for meat $2.71-have to do better here.

Here are some of my great deals for this week:



This picture shows $11.34 shopping from 2 stores both of them Amish. At the bulk store I bought 7 # of oatmeal for $2.89 and 1# Aluminum-free baking powder $1.78. The other is a salvage store. The best deals here were 5# flour 50 cents, Organic rice milk 40 cents, Organic sauce 65 cents.

This picture $8.89 shows Walgreens and one grocery store.

Best deals: Free bread (coupon), Eggs 1 doz at 77 cents from one store (limit 1 with coupon) 3/$3 for the others (raincheck Walgreens) Chili Beans 3/&1 (coupon limit 1 offer). VO5 conditioner buy 2 at 99c get 1 free.

The rest of the groceries I bought included 7# bananas, apples, lettuce, crackers, applesauce peanut butter, tortillas, cheese, juice. I also bought a couple of things that we needed for our snack duty at 4H that I normally would not buy paper plates, cups and the pretzels.

My God bless your shopping in the coming week (and mine too)

Kissing and Hugging Our Kids

I was reading a blog yesterday, Enjoy the Journey, and she was listing important things. One of them was Tell Your Kids You Love Them Every Single Day. That got me thinking about how great it is that my kids still allow me to love on them; even the fourteen year old.

When our second daughter, Jodie, was eleven she went to an Awana sleepover. As I was very pregnant I decided not to chaparone all night long, as I had done in the past. As I was leaving, I gave Jodie a hug and a kiss. When I left another girl whispered in her ear, "It's okay, I still kiss my mom too". What a shame that kids need to be ashamed to be loved by their parents.

When I was in 5th grade I told my parents that I was now too old for hugs and kisses. They must have been heartbroken; I know I would be. What brought this on: A conversation at school.

Maybe we have skipped this because we homeschool, I don't know. The only thing close to this that happened with me, wast about 2 years ago with my now 14-year-old. She started pulling away when I would hold her hand in the parking lot. I don't know if she was embarrassed, or just thought I was holding her hand so she wouldn't get hit by a car, like a toddler. It lasted about a year and now she holds my hand if she is with me by herself.

BTW, I've got it really good now, I can hug and kiss my kids, hubby, mom and dad, mother-in-law, and grandparents!!!!

How We Came to Homeschool When My husband Was Against it

It seems like God often speaks to the wife first about some matter and then uses that to teach her to submit to her husband and to wait on the Lord for the matter to come about. This is the way homeschooling came about for our family.

I don’t even know when I first got the notion to homeschool. I believe it was even before I was a Christian. After I was saved it became very strong and though I didn’t know much about it, I was convinced that this was what God wanted for our family.

The only holdout to homeschooling was my husband. He thought it was very interesting, but was not for our family. It took me a while to figure out what he wanted because I didn’t take the time to ask him. I would listen to his conversation when it was brought up in public. I thought he was very interested until we had a conversation with some friends and he said that we would never do that. HUH. I thought he was in on this for sure. I spoke to him later and he said that it was an interesting concept, but not for our family.

I begged and pleaded, and tried to reason with him. I was so sure that this was God’s will for us. This was when our daughter was 3. As time went on I learned about submission. Oh, this was hard. And why would God let me desire something so much and not let my husband in on it. At this point Meg was 5 and had missed the cut off date for school by a week, and Dh wanted me to put the girls in preschool. I gave my desire to the Lord and said, “God, I was convinced that it was Your will for us to homeschool, but I know you want me to submit. If it is your will you will have to change Chad’s heart.” I decided then that I would not say another word about it to Chad. And I didn’t mention it to the Lord either.

I took the girls to preschool 10 minutes away for a two months. Then my car broke down and we couldn’t afford to get it fixed until January. It was the 1st of November. During this time I actually had put away the idea of homeschooling and had resigned myself to public school for the kids.

One day, before the car was fixed, Chad came home from work. He announced, “If you still want to homeschool, I think we should.” I had to ask what brought this on and he said he didn’t know but he felt very strongly that we needed to do this; that it was the right thing for our family! He was already to convince me if I hadn’t wanted to. He didn’t know I still did because I hadn’t said anymore about it. Praise God. My husband has been totally commited to it ever since.

We’ve been homeschooling for 9 years now and have no intention to stop!

My Breakfast Menu

This is my weekly breakfast menu. The picture shows the page in my Home Management Binder under the section labeled menus/recipies. The Breakfast Menu and the recipie for Baked French Toast are both on this page.

Monday - Scrambled eggs, Fruit, Milk

Tuesday - Whole Wheat Pancakes, Fruit, Milk

Wednesday - Muffins, Fruit, Milk

Thursday - Baked Oatmeal, Fruit, Milk

Friday - Leftovers, Fruit, Milk

Saturday - Whole Wheat Pancakes, Fruit, Milk

Sunday - Baked Oatmeal, Fruit Sauce, Milk

We have milk only with our breakfast meal, as we rarely eat meat with breakfast. Not mixing milk and meat was an Old Testament law. Apparently meat eaten with milk will make it hard for your body to absorb calcium. (Juice is saved for another meal with meat because vitamin C and Iron go very well together.)

Gluttony is a Sin/Weight Loss

Anyone who sees me in my home and how I eat should be amazed that I don't weigh 300 pounds. I am actually one of the fortunate ones who don't gain a lot of weight except when I am pregnant. (I gained 90 pounds with my last baby, but lost 40 in the first two weeks postpartum-water). I have lost 20 pounds by trying in the past, and it is HARD! I often fluctuate about 10 pounds. My problem is not being terribly over weight, but binging is very unhealthy. I get down to a certain weight and then think the sky is the limit.

Two weeks ago at the seminar at church, they were talking about conquering sin. We often are tempted and give in already thinking that we will do better next time. This has been my case for sometime. I would tell myself that if I just finish off the pan of brownies they will no longer be there to tempt me. It does not work that way as I have 3 daughters who love to bake. It dawned on me after the seminar that trying to lose weight is trying to fight off the consequences of the sin of gluttony. WOW, God is amazing for giving revelations. I have been praying to conquer this sin for a long time.

Anyway, I have set aside my study of Psalm 25 for the time being and have taken up meditating on Romans 6 with the intention of getting through to Romans 8. Every time I am tempted to sin (in any way). I have take to reciting in the first person and it is working! What shall I say then? Shall I continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid! That is about as far as I need to go at this point, but I am reciting to verse five at other times just as a reminder that we are dead to sin.

My dh has never taken me seriously about trying to eat better, however this time I explained that I needed accountability and mentioned that gluttony is a sin. Now he is being helpful as well. I have had to ask him on occasion what a serving of something should be.

Because I am not pregnant, nursing, or growing taller I don't need to each between meals. So I have given that up. However, I don't see a need to give up an occasional dessert as long as I only have one helping.

One of the amazing things that is happening is that I am HUNGRY at meal times!!!!! It is very satisfying to come to the table hungry for the good things that are on your plate. Now I know what it means to be truly grateful for your food. I can honestly thank God for my food with a grateful heart!

Why I Wear Dresses

I have gone back and forth on this one for years. I’ve had a church tell me I had to… that God commands it. The Bible does say that men and women should not wear each others garments, of course I don’t see any men wearing capris. So technically anything that most men would not wear would work. But there are other reasons.

When I did begin to wear dresses I wore them because of modesty. Pants form to your body and everyone can see your shape… a skirt or dress leaves much more to the imagination. I immediately noticed that I was treated differently when I wore a dress. Men held doors open for me and people were for the most part more polite.

My husband actually likes jeans on me: Surprise! He likes to look at me. Well, he noticed one day when we were in the store that he, evidently is not the only one. A man followed us through every isle and guess where that man was looking every time my hubby looked back. I had jeans on.

One Sunday one of the elders had read a newspaper article and talked about what was going on in the world. Then he mentioned what he saw coming. One of the things he mentioned stood out to me something fierce. He saw as some people would lead us to believe is true that there is no difference between the genders: No man, no woman, just persons. EEK! I don’t want to be a man. God made me woman. I am different, and not just physically. If it was just physical, God could have made men with all the parts needed. No, women are physically, emotional, mentally different than men. We complement each other. One thinks one way and the other thinks another. We need each other for balance.

In all, I don’t want to bridge the gender gap, I want to keep it as wide as possible. I don’t want to get close to the line, I want to steer far from it. I want to be the feminine woman God chose to make me. I want to look and act the part. God said that His people would be a peculiar people; set apart. So if wearing dresses makes me odd (peculiar) so be it.

As a side note, I act more feminine in a dress (not on purpose), am mostly treated more like a lady, and I like the way I look.

On Being Content

Heb 13:5, Phil 4:11 Jos 7:7

The Lord has been contending with me with contentment for a couple of months now. It actually started with my daughter learning about purity and being content where God has her now. God speaks to us when were are listening, but not always about what we are listening for.

Before I had believed to "Be content with such things as ye have..." (Heb 13:5) meant material things and I mostly don't have a problem there. However, God has shown me that he means all sorts of "things" material, physical, emotional, spiritual. Now we should not be content to not be growing spiritually, however my discontentment was showing in what I perceived my husbands spiritual growth to be. I mean I was basing my spiritual staleness on my husbands leadership. I had ideas of how my husband should be leading our family spiritually. Wow, I had not seen this coming, but I had to admit it was so true. God knows our hearts. I confessed my sin to God and to my hubby. I made a commitment to not compare my hubby to other men, to not read things that would cause me to be discontent, to pray for his (dh's) spiritual growth for his (dh's) sake and to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

I knew that when we make new commitments to God that satan usually attacks, so I was prepared for praying and reading scripture, and resisting the devil so he will flee from me. Wow, was I knocked for a loop when satan attacked my hubby instead of me. Satan twisted my words in my hubby's mind and told him "She is only settling for you". Well we had some very late night talks for the next several nights with much confession and prayer, and as a result became closer as a couple and closer to God.

God has done some amazing things in our life through this. Anyway, the contentment issue came up again last night at The Basic Seminar. This time I started thinking about my desire to have another baby. Could I be content to never have another child. Well the message was that God desires the best for us, and can we see the best in our situation and thank God for where we are. The suggestion was to make a 2 lists of the advantages of both sides, so that we can be content and see God's blessing/purpose in His will. So here is mine. It is not exhaustive, and some of my reasons are selfish, but honest.

Advantages of No More Children/Advantages of Having Another Child
More time to spend with the Lord (Reading, Praying, Studying, Serving) / Adding to the "Christian" population

More time to sew, keep home,be a helpmeet. / Raising more Godly seed to impact the world

More able to concentrate on homeschooling and training the children I already have. /A younger sibling for a companion for the next youngest. And to teach him compassion and selflessness, and so he won't be spoiled.

Save money (medical bills, extra car seat, another chair, etc) /Psalm 127

Sleep / A new baby to love, cuddle, nurse.

Not having to worry about pregnancy complications, birth defects / A purpose for the next 18 years.

Okay, so my list is even though somewhat flawed. I know that I have responsibilities past 18 years, I know that we can have other expenses come up and that God is in control of that. I know I may not get to sleep anyway. I know that I cannot guarantee that my children will be saved. And for anyone with a special baby: I know that they are huge blessings and that God gives generous helpings of the fruits of the spirit for them.

May God bless all who read this with a spirit of contentment.