On the Journey to Victory

Thankful Thursday

2008-04-16T22:40:00.003-04:00

There are many things in my life that I am Thankful for today.

As always, I am thankful for my husband and our relationship we have. I love sharing my life with John. I love that I can share with him my thoughts, hopes, and dreams. Along with my disappointments and hurts.

I'm thankful for my daughters and who they are becoming.

I'm thankful for my job. I have really been enjoying it. The director of our center is just AWESOME to work for. I have been blessed with this job. It took me awhile to find it, but it has been good.

I am thankful for new friends and new opportunities that God is opening the door to.

I am also thankful for our old friends too.

I am thankful for our vacation and the rest we just had.

I am thankful for our church and the awesome place it is to go and worship my savior.

Most importantly I am thankful that The Lord is my best friend and cares for me deeply. I so glad that he knows my heart and understands everything about it.

To visit more Thankful Thursdays list please visit Sting my Heart here.

Until Later,

~Betty~

Weightloss Weekly Goal

2008-04-13T19:19:00.005-04:00

I am committed to loose weight in 2008! I was encouraged by my loosing before vacation, but seem to be gaining some of my weight back. I have to get back on track. My goal this week is to drink water daily and to exercise on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. I will post on how well I do.

Until Later,
~Betty~

Week in Review

2008-04-13T18:37:00.005-04:00

While we were on vacation we planned some structured and unstructured activities. We went to the Country Music Hall of Fame, The Grand Ole Opry, The Hermitage (the Home of Andrew Jackson), downtown Nashville, drove down Music Row, and went shopping at Opry Mills Mall. We also took time to be able to swim at the pool at the hotel.

At Opry Mills Mall the girls got to feed and touch Sting Rays. At first the girls were scared to touch them, which they get naturally from their mom LOL! However, once they saw other people touching them and keeping their hands in the pond they seemed to get use to it and touched them. Even I touched a couple of them. They feel slimy.

I was so impressed that Bethany, my 10 year old, took such an interest in learning something about history while on vacation at The Hermitage House. She gets that from her dad. Bethany and John loved learning all the interesting facts about Andrew Jackson and how things were in his day. Jody, my 6 year old, on the other hand enjoyed seeing the mansion, but could have passed on everything else.

Jody loved the pool the most about vacation. Jody has always loved water and will stay in the pool all day long if you let her. However, she still didn't like to go under the water and when jumping in the pool would only do it if she knew someone was going to catch her. Well, she has advanced. She started doing tricks with Bethany and jumping in on her own and was loving every minute of it. In some ways I loved seeing her Independence, but in other ways I felt sad that she doesn't need me in that way anymore. :( ? :). I'm sure you can relate.

This vacation was a great time for our family. We not only got to do some fun things, but it was a great relaxing time away and just what my spirit needed.

Until Later,
~Betty~

Missing in Action

2008-04-08T09:18:00.004-04:00

I know it has been awhile since I have last posted. I have struggled with what to write about and how to put my thoughts together. I really have missed blogging and want to get back to it, at least that is my plan.

Life here is starting to calm down a little. It has been a hard adjustment to moving and working outside the home full time, but God has walked with us each step of the way and I have drawn closer to him through this part of my journey.

This past weekend we took a little vacation to Nashville, TN and had a wonderful time! It was a great time to get away and relax. It was something I really needed and was well over due.

As a child I don't ever remember a time I went on a family vacation with my parents. It just wasn't something we did or was encouraged. I do remember going to the county fair EVERY year, but that was as close to a vacation as we did. I always had the desire to go on a vacation and felt jealous of those families that did those type of things. As I grew up there were many things I said I would do differently as a mom and wife. Planning vacations and traveling with my family was one of those things and I have changed that in my family.

Because it took me longer than expected to find a full time job our budget has been very tight lately and things have been a struggle. However, things are getting better. Therefore, I was able to fulfill my hearts desire and planned this family vacation.

The details of the trip is still to come. Right now I am going to enjoy a special home cooked breakfast with my family.

Until Later,
~Betty~

555 Deal

2008-03-01T07:30:00.006-05:00

Working full time, moving, adjusting to a new school, Upward basketball, Bible Quizzing, Children's Praise team, guitar lessons, dance lessons, and trying to find family and personal time has been challenging for our family. Trying to balance and succeed at all these things are more than I can handle right now. I need a break and it is evident by ways I have been responding to my friends and family. A few weeks ago our pastor preached on how as a Christian we have an enemy that is wanting to attack us and lately I sure do feel like his prey and have been devoured. After my wounds have healed I will pick up my weapons that I dropped (my bible reading, prayer, and devotions) and will get back into the battle. But first I am taking a break. This weekend is the first weekend in about 3 months or more that we have NOTHING planned and nowhere we have to go. I am keeping it that way. We get to stay home, clean, organize, menu plan, go grocery shopping, and relax. I didn't realize how much I do enjoy these things.

As a family we have decided to make some changes in our lives and have revisited our priorities. I'm learning that with working full time now outside of the home that I can't do all the things that I used to be able to do. God has to come first in my life, then family, then church and other activities. Lately I have been putting church and others things first in my life and that is what I need to change.

Last week my Sunday School teacher presented us with a 15 minute challenge. The challenge was to make an effort this week to spend (at a minimum):

5 minutes listening to GOD (Reading his Word),
5 minutes talking to GOD (Praying), and
5 minutes reading some type of devotional material

We are then to report back of how spending 15 minutes a day with God has made a difference in our week. I have to admit I did not succeed at this for the whole week. However, I am starting this today. I believe one reason why Satan has been devouring me lately is because I have not been spending time with God and getting the power & strength I need from Him. I can't win this battle on my own. I have to do it with the power of the Holy Spirit! Starting today I am accepting this 555 deal. So how about you? Are you ready for a good deal?

Until Later,

~Betty~

Church Security System

2008-02-23T06:47:00.003-05:00

In my last post I said I was coming back to blogging and it has still been awhile since I have posted. I have started several posts and then I get stuck and can't seem to finish my thoughts. I am still planning to post my thoughts more regularly, but life has been challenging lately and I want to share part of it. So just know that I am working on different posts and hope to share them soon. I do have something to share that happened last week at church.

In the children's department at our church we have a security system in place where parents have to sign their children in and out. I know the leaders in charge have put much time and effort into this system to make it work and be a safe place for our children while they are at church learning about God. Keeping that in mind I try not to complain to much about things (I TRY not to!!!!!!!!!). However, this week I just have to complain about our system here. First of all let me explain our system. We have a table set up in front of the children's department where parents sign in their children when they arrive at church. Once the parent sign's their name the child receives a paper wristband with a number on it that corresponds with a tag that is given to the parent. The parent then needs to show this tag when picking up their child and the children worker will match the number on the parent's tag to the child's wristband. This is good especially if the children's worker does not know the parent of the child. During the church service if there is a problem or your child needs you, your number will come up on the projector screen that is used in the worship service. This system has been in use for over a year and has worked well. That was until last Sunday when my child's number came on the screen. This system is great for the 99% of the people that 1. know the number of their child and 2. are not SLEEPING in service, which by the way is what was happening to me. When the number system "failed" me, a children's worker came into service to "get" (wake) me and then told me that my youngest had an accident. Great system if one is aware of the number and is not sleeping in service.

I will for sure be going to bed early this Saturday night. :)! No more relaxing in the bath tub, painting my nails, talking to a friend on the phone, and laying in bed sharing my thoughts and ideas with my husband. lol!

Until Later,
~Betty~

New Start

2008-02-03T14:00:00.000-05:00

I know it has been awhile since I last posted and since then a lot of things have changed in my life and it has been stressful. Here is an update and plans for my future blogging.

Last year in 2007 was a very tough year for me and my family and I am looking forward to a better year in 2008. Looking back through my difficult moments in 2007 I remember times of failures, dissappointments, and frustrations. I went through a time of being mad at God and not understanding why He was allowing certain things to happen in my life and not answering my prayers the way I wanted and thought they needed to be answered. I went through a time when I didn't have any control over certain things in my life. I went through a time of heartbreak and the tears sure did flow a lot. I went through a time of not seeing God working in my life and not knowing where He was leading and not sure I wanted to follow any more. I went through a time of being angry with God and feeling like He left me. Boy am I glad 2007 is over. However through all the tough times in 2007 I did learn and seen God's love for me. Now looking back I can see how God used those hard times to show me His love and how He protected my marriage and has made my family stronger. As I reflect back on last year I am learning from my mistakes and how to make 2008 a better year for our family. Through our circumstances the words that I felt God telling my heart is "restore and rebuild". Therefore 2008 will be a restoring and rebuilding year for me. I'm still allowing God to lead me "On The Journey To Victory!"

There are areas in my life that I am going to work on in 2008 and step it up a noch. Those areas are weight loss, parenting, and my career. I am going to use this blog to record my journey in these areas of my life in 2008. My plan is to post sometime during the weekend about my week in review, then to weigh in and record my weight loss or gain on Fridays (Fitness Fridays). I am planning to post more often than what I have been doing. I'm still learning how to balance my pleasure of blogging and my life responsiblilities. I believe I can use my enjoyment of blogging to obtain my goals that I want to accomplish.

So I am back to posting and using my blog again. So come and join me on this journey and I will keep you posted on what God is doing in my life.

Until Later,
~Betty~

Thankful Thursday

2007-11-21T21:40:00.000-05:00

This past year has had it's share of disappointments. However, today I have a lot to be Thankful for no matter the disappointments I have faced.

First of after a long struggle, I found a job that I really love and it provides great benefits for me and my family. I have posted about the details of how I got the job here.

I have a wonderful husband that has been great in completing tasks around the house the last few weeks. He has done a lot jumping in and doing things for me as I transition into working full time. He has also taken care of the girls and has given me time away from being mom & wife lately. I have felt so loved! He really is awesome and I can't express enough of how thankful I am for him!

I am not only thankful for finding a job, I am thankful for the job I have. I have been there for 2 weeks and I love it and feel like I have the qualifications to do this job. I don't have to convince others (or myself) that I can do it. I have been very impressed with the administration. I have enjoyed working with my co - teacher and believe we will have a good working relationship. Also the kids are wonderful and seeing them learn my name and their hugs are such a blessing.

I am so thankful for my best friend Pat! I am so thankful that I have a friend that just "Gets Me!" We live nine hours away from each other and only sees each other about once a year, but our friendship is such a gift from God. We talk on the phone about once a week for 1 - 2 hours at a time (thank goodness for free night minutes on my cell phone). Our lives and the situations we are dealing with are so different. She is 30 years older than me, has adult children, grand children, and is in the retirement years of her life. My children are still young and I am still in the midst of developing my working career. Regardless of the differences of our lives - our hearts just seem to connect and we are able to share our thoughts and feelings with each other and don't always have to explain it to each other. It seems like we take turns "whining" to each other and offering not only a listening ear, but an understanding heart. I am so thankful that God has brought Pat into my life and has blessed our friendship like only He can.

I am Thankful for my family. I love being a mom and wife. I love seeing my girls play together. I love watching movies with my girls and playing card games with them (as we have started doing more of). Also my extended family. Since my parents have died I don't see my extend family very much, but I received a Thanksgiving card in the mail last week from an aunt and uncle of mine that I haven't seen for about 2 1/2 years. I'm also thankful for my cousins Heidi and Angie that I keep in contact with through email and Instant Messaging.

I am thankful for my family that I "adopted" just because they are wonderful. Ron & Faye have supported, loved me, and have given me great advise. They have been that mother & father figure to me in my life. Even when I have faced one of the biggest failure moments of my life they have still been there hurting with me and saying "Betty we still love you and are praying for you." I love being including in their lives. I also am thankful for their daughter Caryl, who I grew up with. We have been friends since grade school and she is "Aunt Caryl" to my girls and I'm "Aunt Betty" to her girls. Our friendship has changed through the years and it has not developed into what we both thought it would be, but we both agree that we each hold a special place in our each other's heart and we are thankful to be apart of each other's lives and always will be.

I am thankful for the friends that God has brought into my life. There are 2 other couples that we get together with and have such a good time. The guys have a bond together - they have similar sense of humors and watch bad sci-fi B movies together and we women connect and talk. I get so blessed by seeing John have "friends" of his own in his life.

I am also thankful for my church and church family. They are awesome and we just love the church we attend.

I am so thankful for Blogging and being able to express myself this way. I am so thankful for my blogging friend Cheri at Keeping Up With His Plans. Cheri you have blessed me so much these past few months. You have touched my heart in way that I will never be able to express what it has meant to me. Thanks you for your prayers and support.

Most importantly in life I am Thankful for my relationship with Jesus Christ. I am thankful that He saw my imperfections and chose to love me anyways. He has blessed me over and over again. I am so thankful that in every situation in life He walks with me through them all.

As I have been typing this post it has been reminding me of all the great and wonderful things in my life. I am now going to go and spend Thanksgiving day with my family, cooking a big dinner, watching the parade, listening to a football game, watching a movie with my girls, and taking a nap. I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving day! If you want to read more Thankful Thursday posts please visit Laurel Wreath's Reflections

Until Later,

~Betty~

Praise the Lord!

2007-11-17T01:07:00.000-05:00

I have been wanting to post for awhile now. I will start to write something and then my thoughts freeze and I just don't seem to be able to put my thoughts together and write a complete post. I should have shared this a week ago in a Thankful Thursday post, but just couldn't get my thoughts to come together. However here is a much overdue update post:

After much prayer and struggle, I found a full time job! I was working at a college bookstore as a part time, temporary worker. It was going good, but just didn't pay what I need. The reason I accepted this position this past summer was because I thought maybe by working there it would be easier to hear about other positions in the community or maybe at the college. I have been working with kids for quite some time and ran a home day care for years, therefore I decided that I no longer wanted to work in that field and wanted to work in the social work field, since I do have a degree in the field. As I started looking for a social work job, I kept running into a wall and nothing was opening up for me. I felt very frustrated and discouraged and really struggled with the Lord about this. I started to think about other types of jobs and possibly looking into the center based child care field (since I did have child care experience). Well I finally got to the point to where I said "OK God I don't understand what you are doing in my life and don't understand why a job has not opened for me. I trust you and know that you can open the right door, and I will just 'Be Still and Know You are God.'" In my prayer time I got to the point where I just prayed that for whatever reason He had for me and my family to go through this difficult time, that He would use it to strengthen us and for His glory. I also prayed that when the right job came along he would make it happen in a way that only he could and that it would all just fall into place. Well that is what happened!

It was a Tuesday and I was working at the bookstore. A lady came in and needed a staff ID badge. I went to the counter to take her picture and we started talking. She told me that she just started working at the Early Childhood Education Center on the college campus. No big deal, other staff from there have came into the bookstore to get their IDs. However, this time it was different. I started asking her about her job and how she liked it so far. She was very positive about the center and I told her I have thought about apply there and she said they still had some teacher positions open and I should apply. After making her ID I walked with her to the Human Resource Department to talk to them about the job. I was told that I had to apply online and it would take up to a month to be hired. I thought I don't want to wait another month. Well, I went home that Tuesday night and applied online. On Wednesday after work I went down to the Childcare center with resume in hand and asked for the director and was going to give it to her in person (thinking maybe I could speed up the process). When the director came, she informed me she just got my resume about an hour ago and left me a message 15 minutes ago about wanting to set up an interview. Needless to say, I did not get that message! She asked to do an on the spot interview right then. I had the interview on Wednesday and they asked me to come in for a second interview/ observation on Thursday and she called me on Friday to offer me a full time position and I started the following Wednesday. My position is a toddler teacher and I really like it. I have been impressed with the facility and the administration, which is so different from where I worked before. I am responsible for the next 2 weeks of lesson plans and that has been fun. I am still in the transitioning process, but I think this will be good. I praise the Lord for how He provided this job and am very thankful. Through my journey of looking for a job, I have been so loved and supported by many people. God has shown me His love over and over again on this journey.

Until Later,
~Betty~

Thankful Thursday

2007-11-01T01:12:00.000-04:00

It has been awhile since I participated in Thankful Thursday, but I am thankful that I can be apart of it this week. In the past couple of weeks God has been showing me things in my life that I have to be thankful for.

I am so thankful for my husband and the relationship we have together. I love talking and sharing my heart & thoughts with John.

I am thankful for the part time jobs I have right now, while I search for a full time job.

I'm thankful for the people that are in my life and how God has blessed me with them.

I am thankful for the person God has created me to be.

I'm thankful for blogging and the need that it meets in me. It has been so nice to start posting more this week.

I am thankful for my family.

I have learned that no matter what is going on in our lives, we can always find something to be thankful for. If you want to list what you are thankful for or to visit others who list please visit Crystal at God is in Control Not Me.

Until Later

~Betty~

My Week in Review

2007-10-29T02:01:00.000-04:00

Because I want to get back to start posting more regularly, I am going to start "My Week in Review." This will be my weekly post (on Sunday or Monday) updating and informing about my previous week. I want to do this as a way to let people know what is happening in our lives and as a way to journal, document, and remember the events in our lives as my girls grow up. So feel welcome to join me and leave a comment letting me know you were here.

This past week has been busy which has been a normal thing lately.

Our local Salvation Army has a conservatory program which offers dance classes, music classes, and drama classes. On Tuesday evenings John & I teach 2 drama classes, Bethany is taking a guitar class and Jody is taking a dance class. Therefore, every Tuesday is busy. This past Tuesday we signed papers and put our house on the market and am hoping to sell it quickly. The realtor came to the house and put the sign in the yard on Wednesday. We have talked to the girls about moving and they have been with us looking at other places to live, but this week has been an emotional roller coaster ride with them about selling the house. Apparently it has been a topic of discussion at the bus stop and neighbors have been asking them questions about us moving. In one moment the girls are excited about moving and then in the next they remember something they like and decide they don't want to move. I have just been listening to them and letting them express whatever they are feeling at the time. I am also reassuring them that it doesn't matter where we live, the important thing is we will all be together and we are still a family.

On Wednesday the girls got inducted in to the Caravan program, which is a Christian scouting program sponsored by our church.

This past weekend our family was able to go see High School Musical on ice. If you read this post you will remember Bethany won these tickets back in March. Our family rode the Marta into Atlanta and enjoyed the show together. We had AWESOME seats. We were in the second row from the floor. It was a good family time and the girls were excited and sang along with most of the songs. The girls & I really enjoyed the first and second movie, therefore it was not the same seeing the show with different actors. Although it was cool to see the skaters and I didn't point it out to the girls, therefore they seemed to really enjoy it.

Later that night we invited our friends over for a Mexican dinner and a movie night. We have this group of friends that when we get together we have a theme dinner - which we women all cook together and the guys watch a really bad scifi B movie. As always it was a good time. Since we are trying to sell our house we thought this might be one of the last times we will be able to have this type of party in our current house. The thought of going down to Atlanta in the morning and then hosting this party that evening was stress full, but it all worked out. I have become very comfortable with this group of friends, because my philosophy was whatever wasn't done when they got there we would do together. The other ladies came as unprepared as I was and we all just enjoyed each others company anyway.

Well this has been a look into my past week. I hope to post weekly about my everyday activities.

Until Later,
~Betty~

Bits of Everything

2007-10-27T02:06:00.000-04:00

This sure has been a busy month since the last time I posted. I will try to catch up on some of the things that have happen and some things that have not happened!

Jody turned 6 earlier this month. She was so excited!!!! We celebrated her birthday at a local park and invited our friends to join us for a time of play, cake, and ice cream. The kids played and the adults were able to visit with each other. We all seemed to have a good time. I am so thankful for the friends I have. They have been such a blessing to me.

Jody is enjoying school so far and loves to ride the bus with her big sis. She seems to have an inner excitement about school. She has been bringing site words home to study and she gets so proud of herself when she can tell you how to spell them.

Bethany had her first Bible quiz meet of the year. She did pretty good. Along with answering questions the kids have to memorize 20 Bible verses they have to say by the end of the year. Bethany has already said 7 of them. She does good at memorization. I was proud of her.

Bethany still struggles with talking at school. Every week in her weekly Friday folder, she gets a check for needs to control talking. Actually she did have one week with no checks and she got to be student of the week. She was so excited and we were proud. When report cards came out, she did really well. The book work Bethany does at school is really good. We just have to get her to learn how to control her talking. :)

John's job has been very stressful lately, because they have been getting ready for their federal review. At last, the review is now over and he is able to relax a little more. The past couple of weeks God has been reminding me of what a great husband I have and I am so thankful he is my bestfriend and glad he is in my life.

Right now I am working two part time jobs and not making the money I need to be making. I am back working at a local college book store and at a local gym in the childcare area. I am still looking for one full time job!!!! I have sent out many resumes and applyed for many jobs. I have had 3 interviews and did not get any of those jobs. During these dissappointments I have been frustrated, discouraged, and angry. However, I have also came to the point of trusting God even when I don't understand.

I believe God could open the right door and provide a job for me.
I believe He has a plan for me and wants to provide good things.
I believe He can do more than I can think or imagine.
I belive God will provide for me.
I believe God loves me.
I believe God is in control.
I believe God's timing is the best.

God has brought me to stand on each of these statements by faith. During this time in my life I have doubted my faith more than any other time in my life. I don't know God's plan or why certain things are happening, but I have come to the point in my faith that I CHOOSE to trust God and believe that His word is true. I have had to DECIDE to believe these statements I just wrote. I have been so discourageda and frustrated about not finding a job and it taking so long, but I choose to trust Christ and His plan - even if I don't yet know what that is. The past couple of weeks I have just given my search over to the Lord and decided to trust that when God wants me to have a job, He will provide it. Until then I am looking for other ways in my life that God is blessing me - and I am finding them! I don't know why God has not blessed me with a job, but I am blessed in a lot of other ways. He has been showing me His love in so many other ways. I see God's blessing in my marriage. I could not imagine going through this time without John. Some of the decisions that we have had to make could have caused a division in our spirit and cause problems, but we have been in unity with our decisions. Our marriage is surviving a very stressful time in our lives and that is a blessing from God that I am glad I have. I have some wonderful friends that God has showed me His love through them. I have a wonderful church family that loves and supports us. As God is teaching me to trust Him for a job and with our finances, He is also showing me His love.

This is just some of the lessons God is teaching me. I hope to find the time to share more soon. I also hope to be back and share that I have found a job, but that is up to the Lord.

Until Later
~Betty~

Menu Plan Monday

2007-09-24T16:42:00.000-04:00

Although I don't always get to post my menus, I have been planning my family's weekly menus for about 2 years now. I remember when I was first married and starting my family I never knew what to cook for dinner and had no system in mind. Menu Planning has become such a must for me, I can't believe I ever grocery shopped without my plan. I don't know why it has taken me so long in my marriage to implement this task. However, I am a big supporter of menu planning and would encourage anyone to try it. I love it and it works for me!

Here is what my family is eating this week:

Monday: Grilled Hamburger Steaks with Roasted Onions, Tatar Tots, Pasta Salad

Tuesday: Pizza Stuffed Garlic Rolls, Applesauce

Wednesday: Cheese Manicotti

Thursday: Sweet & Sour Chicken over Ramon Noodles - for the kids (and rice for me)

Friday: Chicken Chili, Corn bread

Saturday: Chicken Fajitas

Sunday: Leftovers

I linked the recipes for these meals, however I use recipes as a guideline and don't always follow the recipe exactly. I add my own variation and do my own thing.

If you want to join in the fun and post your menus or to visit other menus you can visit Laura, The Organized Junkie here.

Until Later,

~Betty~

Back to Blogging

2007-09-22T06:22:00.001-04:00

Have you ever had a friend that you love the relationship and enjoy being around, but then life happens. For many reasons time passes and you notice that it has been while since you have talked to your friend or you have been together. I can think of several times this has happened to me.

I start thinking about my friend and realize it has been quite some time since I have talked to her. My desire is to call and she how she is doing and let her know what is going on in my life and find out what is going on in her life, but when I realized that so much time has past I feel a little guilty. Then I start wondering how she will respond since it's been awhile and then I wonder where I should start and what should I say. Well, how I feel about this blog right now.

I have been busy and haven't posted for awhile. I have been wanting to post, but since it's been awhile I have been sure how to start back up. I was hoping that when I came back to blogging I would have great news and to be able to tell you that I found a job, I love it & the people, it's going great, it is just what I wanted, and the pay is more than what I expected. I wanted to be able to share how God provided just the right job, at just the right time, and how God did something really BIG and wonderful in my life that only God can do. .... Well that hasn't happened, but I've been wanting to get back to posting and use my blog to express my feelings and my walk with the Lord. Therefore, I am going to share my difficult moments along with the good things. Right now it seems like I have been having a lot of difficult moments. I don't want this blog to be all negative and just telling about the hard stuff, but that is just where I am right now. If this is to negative for you then you can pray for me and ask the Lord to send me a special blessing that I can share :). In all honesty, even though I am going through a hard time in my life, I have been blessed with special moments along the way. I will just have to remember to share those too.

I'm still looking for a job. I had an interview a couple of weeks ago and thought it went well. I was real excited about the job. I felt like the interviewer described my dream job. When she was describing her ideal candidate I was sure she was describing me. Apparently God has other plans, because I didn't get that job. Therefore, my search continues.

Since the last time I posted school has started back and my baby is now in Kindergarten. So far the school year is going good. Jody, my 5 year old, is excited about school and learning new things. Bethany, my 10 year old 4th grader, is having a tougher year. She is maturing and growing up. I don't recall giving her permission to do that. :) LOL! We had coupons for a free meal at Chick-fil-a so we went there for dinner last night and Bethany was not real interested in the play ground anymore. As Jody enjoyed the tunnels and slides, Bethany chose to stand there to sing and come up with a dance routine. Then last night the school had a movie night and showed High School Musical. We have the DVD, have seen it a million times on TV, but still had to go to see it at school :) LOL! John refused to go see it so we planned to have a girls night out! The girls & I got to the school and Bethany went off in one direction with her friends, Jody went off in the other direction with her friends and I was left there wondering where were my friends? AFTER the movie I met some of my girls friend's mom who I could have enjoyed sitting with during the movie and talked liked everyone else in the room did. Good thing everyone had already seen the movie, because you would not have been able to follow it. The kids talked during the whole movie until the last song when most of the kids all stood and join in to sing the finale with Zac and Gabriela. That was the best! It sure did put a smile on my face and other parents too.

Do you like to go out for breakfast? We do, especially on Saturday mornings. Well because of my challenge of finding a job, that is not a wise choice for us today. Therefore, we have decided to cook our own "family style" brunch. John has made pancakes, I made an egg casserole, Bethany made drinks, and Jody set the table. I tell you that to say that I am now leaving and going to enjoy some family time. I hope you all are enjoying some family time this weekend too. I am going to try to be back more often. During my break I did learn there are people who are reading my blog that do not comment and who I didn't expect to be reading. (Shep, thanks for reading and feel free to comment and let me know you are there :) LOL)

Until Later,
~Betty~

Blog vs. Job Search

2007-08-14T23:41:00.000-04:00

Don't know if anyone is still reading this blog or not. Just wanted to let you know that because of my need for a job, I have been using my computer time for intensive job search instead of blogging. I have received the peace from the Lord about my job search that I have been wanting. I am just waiting for the right job to open, but I now have the confidence and assurance that it will happen. I want to thank you all for your prayers. I can feel the difference in my life because of people's prayers. They have made a difference! I hope to return soon with the good news of a job. I do miss you all, but you have to do what you have to do!

Until Later,
~Betty~

Philippians 4:13

2007-08-10T22:52:00.000-04:00

I received this in an email and it encouraged me. I aslo thought this described a lot of what I have been going through lately. Therefore I thought I would share this little poem. Let me know your thoughts.

Philippians 4:13 --- I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

The road to success is not straight.

There is a curve called Failure,

a loop called Confusion,

speed bumps called Friends,

red lights called Enemies,

caution lights called Family.

You will have flats called Jobs.

But, if you have a spare called Determination,

an engine called Perseverance,

insurance called Faith,

a driver called Jesus,

you will make it to a place called Success.

Until Later,
~Betty~

Are You Where God Wants You to Be?

2007-08-03T15:51:00.000-04:00

My journey continues. I still do not know what God is doing in my life. I saw a church sign that said:

"In life, are you where God wants you to be?"

My response is I sure hope not! I don't know what God is doing in my life or what He is trying to teach me. I know I can not stay where I currently am. Maybe I'm just in His waiting room. As you know, the big thing going on in my life right now is trying to find a job. I have been working temporarily part time at a college book store, well it is no longer temporary. I no longer work there. They are now heading into their slow time and don't need me any more. I'm asking God, now what? I am still waiting for his response. I don't understand why it is taking so long to find a job. Our finances can not handle much more time off. I have been looking back at some of our decisions and wondering if I made the right decisions or not. Maybe I shouldn't try to second guess myself, but I don't know what else to do. As I reflect back on some of the decisions that we have made, at the time we made the decisions I don't think that we acted out of God's will or disobeyed Him. I remember praying that "Lord if this is not what you want for us then don't let the doors open." I think when we made certain decisions we took the information and knowledge we had at the time and did what we thought was best at the time. It's so easy to beat myself up and think I did something so wrong to be struggling like we are. Maybe I shouldn't be blaming myself, but I don't know what else to think or what else to do. I have also been thinking about what I can do differently. I have been praying that God will give me wisdom, knowledge, and new ideas to try. I am still waiting! I am really struggling with my faith right now and praying that God will come through for me. Deep down, I know He will! I'm just waiting for His blessings and asking Him to get me out of this situation that I'm in right now.

I know my posts lately have not been upbeat or encouraging, but I am just expressing where I am right now. I don't plan to stay in this mode, but believe me when I say that I have been praying and trying to see God's hand and His plan in everything that is happening in our lives lately. I just feel down and am using this blog to express my feelings and thoughts. I don't mean to be discouraging or down, but I'm just sharing my journey right now and what I'm currently dealing with. I shared with my best friend, Pat, today that I know this time will pass, but until then I'm struggling and feel like a big storm cloud is following me everywhere I go.

In my quiet time and at church, as an act of my will, not feelings, I have been praising the Lord in spite of my circumstances and how I'm feeling. Pat encouraged me today as an act of my will to not doubt the Lord and trust that He will come through for my family. This is my challenge for the week. I will let you know how it goes and what the Lord does for us.

Until Later,
~Betty~

2 Times to Learn It!

2007-07-26T00:05:00.000-04:00

I am learning something about myself. It seems like it takes me 2 times to learn something. For the second time in 6 months our computer crashed and I lost my pictures and my files that I had saved on the computer. The pictures that I lost I will be able to get most of them back from friends and family who have duplicates. The biggest frustration is loosing my files. I had each month of my budget plan and all of John's and my different resumes and cover letters saved on the computer. Do you realize how much time I had invested in those things? I had different resumes and cover letters developed for different types of jobs we have been applying for. Writing and developing these does not come easy to me, therefore to think about starting over does not thrill me at all. The fact that this has happened to me before you would think that I would have known better and would have saved and backed up everything, but NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO I didn't! I am so frustrated with myself. However, I can honestly say that I have learned this time. From this point on, I will save my things to a disk and/or jump drive.

I have missed everyone this week. I have not been able to blog or get on line since Sunday night. So now I will try to catch up with everyone. Also I wanted to thank you all for the wonderful comments from my last post. You all made me cry. Thank you for your prayers. I realized that I have some great blog friends, along with my REAL friends (who most of them I don't think read my blog).

Blogging helps me to relax and I enjoy it, but I now have to go to bed. I work early tomorrow and have a friend from Ohio coming in to visit. I hope everyone has a good day.

Until Later,
~Betty~

Real Life Roller Coaster Continues

2007-07-21T11:26:00.000-04:00

My roller coaster life continues. I am trying to find a full time job preferably in the social work field. However, I applied for a job at a child care center close to my home. I talked to the director and she asked me to come in for a formal interview with the assistant director. The interview was short and I felt like I didn't click with the assisant director and that I bombed the interview. Then to my suprise a couple days later (a Friday) the assistant director called me and asked if I was still interested in the position. When I responded yes she wanted me to start on Monday. Because of previous commitments, I told her I couldn't start until the following week. She said OK, we discussed the pay and said she would talk to the owner about the pay rate.

Thinking that meant I got the job, I gave the bookstore (where I was working) my notice and was looking forward to this new job. Can you guess what happened?

For some reason I just had an unsure feeling about this new job, therefore I called to confirm my starting date and time to be there. I was told by the assistant director (the one I didn't click with) that the director was off for the next two weeks and that they world have to call me back and let me know for sure if I got the job or not. My stomach dropped as I was going down that hill. I had already turned in my notice and I didn't have a job to go to and knowing that I NEED to have a job.

I don't understand how in one phone call an employer can ask a person to start a job the next business day and then in the next phone call tell them they may or may not have the job. I also don't understand how an employer could offer you a job and expect you to be available the next business day! I asked these questions to the manager at the bookstore where I'm working and I had a different experience talking to someone who could be totally objective and not someone that knows me and cares about me and wanting the best for me. You know what I mean? I don't mean to say that she's not a caring person - just that she's not emotionally connected or involved with me. I asked for her opinion as a business person and as an employer. She had some of the same thoughts I did. She said it sounded like the director and assistant director had some miscommunication problems. She also advised me that I may want to reconsider if that would be a place I would want to work if I 'm having these kinds of problems before I even start working there. She also asked me if this was really the job I wanted or was I settling? Well, she was right. If I took that job I would be settling and it would just be something until the job I wanted would come along. She also advised me not to job hop, because that will look bad on a resume - which I already knew. Therefore, I have decided that if I do get a call back I am not accepting the job at the daycare center. I did talk to the mangers at the bookstore and they are aware that I am looking for a full time social work job and have agreed to let me work at the bookstore until I find the right job for me. Of course this is only part time so I really do need to find something soon, which is a totally different post all together.

This roller coaster ride of finding the right job and trying to figure out what God is teaching me and wants me to do continues. I still feel like God is not hearing or listening to my prayers and I am going through a dry period in my Christian walk right now. However, I have decided that I am going to Praise the Lord anyways no matter how I feel! I asked a friend of mine this morning to pray for me, because God is not listening to my prayers and maybe He will listen to yours. I am going to ask you in Blog world the same thing. Would you please say a pray for me. I need a special touch from the Lord. I need to hear Him say that He still loves me. I need to hear him say that He has our job and our financial situation under control. I need Him to provide our needs like His word says He will. I need to know that I am walking in the right path He wants me to and if I'm not, I need to know how and where to change. If you wouldn't mind please say a prayer for me. I sure would appreciate it.

Until Later,
~Betty~

Time With John's Family

2007-07-18T00:33:00.000-04:00

Having 5 extra overnight guest for a week and 2 others during the day CAN be a WONDERFUL experience! John's family were here visiting from out of state last week. It was good to see everyone and at the end of the week we all were still talking to each other and all in one piece. :) I had to work 3 days of the week, but John was off all week and got to entertain everyone. He did a great job!

We made some memories last week. One night we all were hanging out on our patio while the kids were playing in the yard. We had a total of 4 girls; my daughters, Bethany(9) & Jody(5), and my nieces Kayla (12) and Katie (10). As it started to get dark the kids started playing flash light tag & hide-and-seek. It wasn't long until the adults joined in and we all started playing in the dark. I can not remember the last time I played hide-and-seek. I used to love that game as a kid. I really should put down my guard and play like this more often. We divided into partners and changed partners at each turn/ round and took turns being "it." I'm not sure if the adults or kids had more fun. However, we did create a memory for the girls and the adults. This was a great way to start out our week with the family. Because of other plans and activities this was the only day we were able to do this, but it was such a great time!

The other big thing we did was we went to downtown Atlanta and visited the World of Coke Museum. Our family is a Pepsi fan, but we still agreed to visit :). It was interesting to learn and hear about the history of the coke product and see how it has changed through the years. The highlight of the tour was the taste test of the different types of cokes they serve in different countries. I am not one that is real daring and will try new "weird" foods, but I was open to try the different drinks. The cup was small, so a small taste can't hurt right? I started out tasted a couple apple flavored drinks from Asia and those weren't to bad. So it was all going good. Then came the drink from Italy!!!!! Cheri I thought of you and wondered if you really can get the Beverly drink in Italy? It was the worst thing I have ever tasted. I only took a small sip, but the taste was so intense that it filled my whole mouth. It was awful! After that I decided I would not try anything else and was done with the tour! I heard that they make the Beverly drink out of the peels of grapefruit. All I can say is I will never try that again. According to what I am hearing from others, many people feel the same way I do about the drink. I'm interested to hear from Cheri, who lives in Italy, if they really have this drink there and if you have tried it and your thoughts on the drink! Do tell!

Overall we had a good visit with the family and got to do some fun things. I hope everyone had a good week and I hope to get caught up on every one's blog this week. I also have other things to share about my job and my "real life" roller coaster ride, therefore my next post shouldn't be that far apart. I started a new system to blog and will see how long it last. I have found that I really enjoy writing (with pen & paper instead of just typing) my thoughts, but I really enjoy bloging and sharing my thoughts and feelings. Therefore, I bought a notebook and will write my thoughts, feelings, events, and etc. down then type them on my blog. I'm hoping this will help me to keep track of ideas/memories I want to remember too. We will see how it goes.

Until Later,
~Betty~

New Chapter

2007-07-05T08:56:00.000-04:00

I know it has been awhile since I have posted, but there has been a lot going on here and have not much time to get my thoughts together to be understood. This week I have started a new chapter in my life. I am no longer doing child care in my home. I am working at a local college bookstore right now. I have mixed feelings about this and am not sure if it will work out or not. It all happened faster than what I expected, but felt like God was opening the door, therefore I walked through it for now. This job is temporary with a good chance it may lead into something more permanent. I am still looking for another job and would like to work in the Social Work field. I am also struggling with not staying home with my girls, I didn't think that would bother me as much as it is. I know to meet our need financially I have to have something that pays more. Right now I feel like I am on a roller coaster and I can't see the track in front of me to know which way we are going next. I know God is in control, but for someone who likes details it is REALLY hard to trust Him, not impossible just HARD! I know God is working in my life and will get me through this period in our lives, but I sure don't know what he is doing and don't see His plan at all. I feel like I am getting a deaf ear when I pray. I have been a Christian long enough to know not to trust my feelings, but I'm just expressing them here. I am learning to trust the Lord through this and am trying to enjoy my life as I am on this ride. I am praying for God's will and for Him to be glorified.

Now with working outside the home I'm not sure how often I will be posting. We have family coming into town next week so I don't think I will have time to blog. Hopefully I will catch up in a couple of weeks.

Until Later,
~Betty~

SMART Habit Saturday

2007-06-23T09:49:00.000-04:00

Last week I decided to rejoin SMART Habit Saturdays. My goal was to start reading to my girls as a family time. Well, we have started this goal. As a family we all went to the library and picked out a book. As a family we are going to be reading Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder. During the day we did spend more time reading, but as a family we only read at night. Therefore, we got off to a good start, but I will still be working on this to form it into a habit.

Other things I am working on this week are:

walking everyday

drinking water everyday

bible reading everyday

declutter/ organize something once a day

One load of laundry a day

keeping my kitchen sink clean

I hope everyone else has a good week. I will report on how these things go next Saturday! Visit Lara here to visit more SMART Habit Saturdays!

Until Later,

~Betty~

Thankful Thursday

2007-06-21T15:55:00.001-04:00

It’s Thursday again, which means it’s time to talk about something I am thankful for.

This week I am thankful for my husband. As I posted here John and I were fighting all last week, but we did resolve our issues. This week I was reminded of some good things about my husband.

This week I chose to work on reading to my children as a SMART Habit Saturday goal. You can visit Lara here to learn more about that. At dinner one night I was talking to John about this and explaining to girls my thoughts and plans about this. John knowing my desire took the lead by taking my thought one step further and said after dinner there would be no more television tonight and we were going to the library and spend the rest of the evening reading. As a family we started reading the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. I can not begin to express how much this just thrilled me. John and I disagree on the amount of time we allow the TV to be on in our house, therefore I was so excited when he decided to do this. It made me feel very thankful for him.

Also I was reminded this week that with all the faults and weaknesses that John has that irritated me so much last week, I am glad John is in my life.
I am thankful:

For who John is and how God uses him
For when it comes to the big things in life John is a good husband
He cares about me & our girls
He loves God
Someone that I can trust
Someone that I can talk to
Someone that I respect
He knows right from wrong
He lives a life with convictions

This week our neighbor had a bad situation happen to her and we went over to help out and got in the middle of a mess. I know God had to be guiding us and protecting us, because I did not think about what could be happening or what could have happen to us. We just reacted to a desperate cry for help from a 10 year girl, who was claiming that someone was beating up her mom. We went over and as John broke up the fight, the guy punched John in the mouth and took off running. The police and the paramedics came and took care of things.
I am thankful

That we were able to help
That things were not any worse than they were
Wonderful neighbors that also came to help when it was needed
The neighborhood that we live in
For John’s attitude about the whole thing
Policemen that protect us from violent people
Wisdom from God that tells us when we can and should help and when we need to let someone else help

Overall this week I am thankful for the life that I live, for my husband, and for my supportive friends.

You can visit Iris at Sting my Heart to see more Thankful Thursdays.

Until Later,
~Betty~

Weekend Reflections

2007-06-19T01:07:00.000-04:00

I like to participate in Weekend Reflections hosted by my blogging friend Judi, however I don’t always get my post written and put on my blog. This is something I am working on and trying to record what is going on in our lives.

When I started this post I had every intention to publishing this on time. However, things that I had no control over prevented me from doing that. I want to record and share this story so I decided to still post it as a Weekend Reflection, even with it being late.

I want to start out by sharing about last weekend celebrating my 12th wedding anniversary with my husband. Let me say that we had the best weekend we could have asked for. For months I have been planning on doing something special for our anniversary this year and I wanted to surprise him. I had so much fun keeping the surprise from him and my friends got involved to really get John going and to make him think we were doing something we were not. One friend told him we were heading south to the beach and another friend told him we were heading north. John was so confused he didn’t know what to think.

It started Friday night and I told him our friends Tom & Michelle wanted to take us to this restaurant to “make up for blowing the surprise.” We were heading to downtown Atlanta and when we turn into the parking lot for the Braves vs. Cubs game (which John is a huge Cubs fan) he looked back at me and glared as if I did something wrong. Lol ! I had convinced him earlier that week that we could not get tickets, because I forgot they were in town when I made our weekend plans. Friends have made the comment of how manipulative I can be, but John has forgiven me lol! So for our anniversary John got to watch the cubs win for a change! The first pitch of the inning was a home run for the cubs! The game was so much fun, because we were not just sitting with braves fans, but baseball fans. It was neat to hear the guys take about the strength and weaknesses of both team, not just the positive about their favorite team and the negative about the opposing team. The braves fan that were sitting around us were having fun watching John rooting for the cubs too, knowing that the cubs struggle to win games. It was such a good time and surprising John was the best.

Saturday we went back to Atlanta and went shopping at The Container Store. I have read several blogs talk about this store so when I learned there was one in Atlanta I wanted to check it out and we did. John was even starting to get excited about organization :)! We then went to the hotel and had the whole swimming pool and hot tub to ourselves. I guess most people don’t use the pool in the middle of the afternoon. We ended our evening by going to a comedy club to see Jon Reep. Because of John’s sense of humor and that he likes to laugh, he really enjoyed this. It was our first time to ever go somewhere like that. It was good. I was worried a little bit of what the jokes may be like and if it would stay clean or not. There were some things that I did not approve of, but overall it was good.

Sunday we had a Caravan, a Christian scouting program at our church, celebration for our girls. We enjoyed our girls and then later that night we went to Stone Mountain Park to watch the Laser show.

It was an awesome weekend, I could not have asked for anything better!

This past week Bethany, my 9 year old, went to church camp. She had a great time. I remember as a kid I loved to go to church camp. I’m glad Bethany is enjoying it as much as I did.

The other big thing about the week was that John was off work and we fought all week. It is amazing that we went from having the best weekend ever to having one of the worst weeks of fighting we have ever had. We went from the highest of high to the lowest of the low. The good news is that we were able to work things out and were able to resolves some issues. I have to be honest; I was worried there for awhile. It didn’t look like we were going to resolve some things, but we did! Praise the Lord!

You can visit Judi at Mommy of Two for more weekend reflections.

Until Later,
~Betty~

Thankful for Organizational blogs/ Back to SMART Habit Saturday

2007-06-16T23:03:00.000-04:00

I have not always been an organized person. However, for the past few years I have been making it more of a priority. I used to look at my clutter and know that it needs to be put away in a neater and more organized matter, but just didn’t know how to do it. Organization doesn’t come to me naturally, so it has always been a struggle for me. Last year I found some organizational websites which began to help. Then I started blogging and I found Laura the organized junkie and I learned practical ways to become organized and seeing her pictures and reading her posts really taught me how to BECOME organized, not just telling me that I needed to be organized. I learned how containers and boundaries can make a difference in my home and how they can help me to be clutter free and how they help with a sense of peace I can have in my home. Don’t get me wrong, I still have far to go on my organizational journey, but I am so much farther down the path than where I have been. Also just to be clear, I do not judge or think less of anyone else that chooses NOT to have an organized or clutter free home. I respect people’s decision to choose for themselves. The fact is we all have the right to decide for ourselves about our homes. I’m just saying that for me, I wanted things to be different in my home. I was tired of things being a mess, not being able find things, and it always taking hours to clean up to have anyone over for dinner. I find that I enjoy my home and family in a different way. I love the feeling of my home being cleaned and organized.

Also on this journey I found the Flylady who talks about starting out small and setting up routines. She teaches how to become & STAY organized in your everyday life. These principals have helped me to keep my house clean & organized throughout the day, although I don’t follow every single principal of hers.

As I continued to blog I found Lara The Lazy Organizer. She started talking about how smart it is to set goals and form habits. She even started a weekly blog carnival called SMART Habit Saturday, where we choose a new goal or habit to work on each week and post about it on our blog. I started out doing this every week and then I took a break from blogging and stopped posting about my goals and habits. However, these habits have also helped me to have an organized home and have helped me improve other areas in my life. On this journey I am thankful for these ladies that share their experiences, knowledge, and encourage others to better themselves. The knowledge, the habits, and the goals that I formed have made a difference in my life and my home. Therefore, this week I was thinking about things I wanted to change in my life and about my family and thought it would be good to start participating in SMART Habit Saturdays again.

I struggle a lot to get Bethany, my 9 year old, to read books. I know she needs to be reading daily and it is always a battle with her. John and I have been talking about this and discussing ideas of how to get her to read. I was over at Lucy, An Ordinary Mom’s, site and read about her goal of reading to her children and God used that post to convict me to work on that goal with my children. Therefore, I decided that I would make that my goal this week. I am going to go to the Library and check out the Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House on the Prairie, book and I want to have a special time each night before bedtime and read as a family. My thinking is if we try to do this as a family time, Bethany may not fight it as much. Please pray for me I will need it. So this is my goal this week and I will report next week to as how it goes.

Please visit Lara here for more Smart Habit Saturday post.

Until Later,
~Betty~

In my Weekend Reflections I am going to share how my awesome weekend with my husband, celebrating our 12th year wedding anniversary, went from the highest point to the lowest and how we worked it out. Please come back and read my story.

Thankful Thursday

2007-06-14T22:38:00.000-04:00

I am thankful for God Blessings in my life and how He provides for me when I need him. One issue I really try not to blog about is finances and any situation relating to that, but I really must share this story in order to Praise God and give Him the glory.

Last week I was working on our budget and for various reasons I knew our expenses would be increasing this month and our income would be decreasing, which is not a joyful or fun position to be in. However, I continued to list our expenses for the month and then list our income for the month. In some ways we were coming up short. I rechecked some categories and was going to make it work. I do our budget in a spreadsheet and each bill has a category and I add or subtract money into each category as I need to. One of the categories that we pay is tithe. We believe in giving 10% of our income to our local church that we attend. When we get paid I put 10% of our income into our tithe category and keep track of it that way. Usually what happens on the weeks that we get paid, as I’m sitting in service on Sunday mornings I will write out our check. Sometimes I don’t always remember the exact amount that is in our account, but I’m usually pretty close to the figure.

Well, last week when I was working on our budget I felt like I should figure out the exact amount in our tithe account and write out the check. After figuring out our expenses and income I knew it was going to be really tight and we would be short on some bills and would have to go without some things. I didn’t have any solutions. I prayed about our financial situation as I have been for several months now.

You see, John & I are both looking for a different job that pays better and will be able to take care of our financial obligations and our needs. Therefore we are playing a wait and see game. We are sending out resumes and praying that we get interviews and then jobs, but that is as far as we are in the process. We are waiting for God to lead and open the right doors and trying to trust Him while we are waiting, which can be a challenge.

So back to the budget, I really felt like the Lord was telling me to write out the tithe check first even if that meant other bills may not get paid. To be honest, I struggled and was tempted not to pay our tithe this time. I just couldn’t see how some of our bills were going to get paid and we would make it through the month. As I was struggling with writing out that check I felt the Lord reminding me of the scripture verse

Malachi 3:10 which says:“Bing the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.”

The other scripture verse that the Lord brought to my mind was Matthew 6:31 – 32 which says, “So do not worry, saying ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.

And Philippians 4:19 says “And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Chris Jesus.”

As hard as it was I did write out that check and told the Lord that I did not see how He was going to provide, but I would trust Him. I gave my plan to Him and told him here is what I’m going to pay and how I’m going to spend our money, if He wanted me to do something different then He would have to provide something different. At that moment I felt more of a peace and trust than I had in a loooooooooong time! When John came home I told him of my conversation with the Lord and what I was going to do and was going to leave it at that. I did not share this specific situation/ concern with anyone other than John. Can you guess what the Lord did?

Later that night I received an unexpected check that more than covered the amount we needed for the rest of bills, and some extra that we were able to go out and celebrate our 12th wedding anniversary. God knew not only what our need was, but what the desire of my heart was too. Because I trusted Him and was obedient, even when it did not make sense to me He blessed me beyond what I could imagine or have asked for. This was bigger and more than what I would have even thought to ask for. God showered His blessing on us and I felt so loved.

I don’t know how God is going to work everything out from this point on, but I know I can trust Him and I know that He will provide and come through for His children. I am so thankful for God’s love, blessings, and guidance in my life. I give Him all the glory. If you have experience similar to this or how God has blessed you at the time you needed it, I would love to hear about it. We should share how God has blessed us and this is my way to share how he is working in my life. I hope God is blessing you too.

Please check out Sing My Heart for more Thankful Thursday posts.

Until Later
~Betty~

Weigh In Update

2007-06-12T00:01:00.000-04:00

I am participating in the May Day Challenge, which you can learn more about it here. It is weigh in time again! I have not been weighing myself everyday this week. It has been about every other day and that seems to be working okay. I still only record my weight on Saturdays.

Here are my stats:
Beginning weight: 212.6
Last week weight: 211.6 (which was a gain of 3.8 from the week before)
This week’s weight: 210.0
Loss/ gain: -2.6 :)

Summary of Past Week:
This past week I did not do my structured exercising everyday, but was more active than normal. I did not make my goal of water intake everyday, but did drink more than what I was drinking. I am making baby steps in the right direction; I just have a long way to go. Also this past week was my time of the month so I was always hungry and had a hard time to stop eating.

Plan for this week:
My plan for this week is pretty much the same: to drink more water and less tea. I also need to get back into my exercise plan. I am still setting boundaries for myself and trying to follow through with them.

My boundaries this week are:

Drink four glasses of water everyday
Exercising 5 days a week
No sugar, except in my tea (which is half of what I used to use)
No Pop (soda) except on Saturday and Sunday and then only one each day

My challenge this week will be to follow through.

Please visit Tales from the Scales here to visit more challengers or to become apart of the challenge.

Until Later,
~Betty~

Menu Plan Monday

2007-06-11T23:05:00.001-04:00

I really have been learning to be more organized and I love the progress I have made. One thing that I have started awhile ago is planning out my weekly menus. I used to participate in Laura, The Organized Junkie's Menu Plan Monday. Although I have continued making my menus I just have not posted them here for awhile. Since I have been struggling with continuing posting and knowing what to write about, I thought by posting my menus that I keep anyways might help me to get back into the routine of posting on my blog. Therefore, here is my family’s menu this week:

Monday:
Lunch: Chicken Lunchmeat Sandwiches, carrots & peas, and bananas
Snack: Gram Crackers
Dinner: Italian Chicken, cheesy vegetable melody, potatoes

Tuesday:
Lunch: Grilled Cheese, green beans, oranges
Snack: Pizza Rolls
Dinner: Bruschetta Chicken Bake

Wednesday:
Lunch: Fish Sticks, French Fries, Pineapple
Snack: Snack Crackers with Peanut butter
Dinner: Hamburgers, onion rings

Thursday:
Lunch: Chicken Wings, corn, Oranges
Snack: Cereal
Dinner: Fajitas

Friday:
Lunch: Tacos
Snack: Peanut butter bread
Dinner: Omelets, toast, hash browns

To participate or to visit more menus please visit Laura here.

Until Later,

~Betty~

May Day Challenge Weigh In

2007-06-06T08:36:00.000-04:00

It is Weigh In time again. I have not done very well this week with my eating and exercising. As much as I don’t want to admit it I had a weight gain of 3.8lbs this week.

Here are my stats:
Beginning weight 212.6
Last week weight: 207.8
This week’s weight: 211.6
Loss/ gain: +3.8 L

Summary of Past Week:
I’m not surprise of my weight gain. I know there were days when I did not make the best food choices this week. I am not going to give up. This is the point where I usually fall off the journey and say forget it for awhile and eat and drink whatever I want and try again later down the road. However, I’m not going to do that this time. I am recommitting to this challenge right now. I’m not going to wait for a few weeks.

Plan of this week:
My plan for this week is to drink more water and less tea. I am struggling with drinking water. I am learning that there is just no easy way to do this; I will just have to do it. I have limited myself to only have Mt. Dew on the weekends, which is such a BIG step for me. I’m going to reflect on why disciplining myself on drinking water is so hard for me. As a mom, I can set boundaries and discipline my children and follow through with my guidelines, but it is so hard to follow through on the guidelines I set for myself. I don’t mean impossible, just hard. This week I am working on self discipline and following through on the boundaries I set for myself. These boundaries are:

Drinking four glasses of water everyday

Exercising 5 days a week

No sugar, except in my tea (which is half of what I used to use)

No Pop (soda) except on Saturday and Sunday and then only one each day

My challenge this week will be to get back on track and to follow through. To find out more about this challenge or to visit others please check out Tales from the Scales here.

Until Later,
~Betty~

Weigh In

2007-05-30T01:01:00.000-04:00

Today is weigh in day. I missed last week and didn’t post. Last week I did gain 1.4lbs, but this week I have a lost of 2.6lbs. This means since the start of the challenge with the losses and the gain I have lost 4.8 lbs.

I have been weighing myself daily and recording it, and I’m beginning to wonder if I will continue to do that. Some days it becomes discouraging to see my weight go up & down so much, but in other ways it helps me to stay on target.

My plan for this week is to exercise 5 days a week and to drink more water. I have been staying on target with my exercise. I really need to work on the water intake. I also plan to eat more salads this week with Balsamic Vinegar Dressing instead of my favorite Creamy Ranch.

We will see how this week goes and I will report next week. So how did you do this week?

Please visit Tales from the Scales here if you want to know more about the Challenge or to read more participants.

Until Later,
~Betty~

Weekend Reflections

2007-05-27T01:53:00.000-04:00

This week has gone by so fast. It has been over a week since I posted. I have been wanting to post, it’s just my thoughts didn’t come together. So I thought I would try to catch up on my weekend reflections.

Summer break started this week for my girls. Bethany has already been spending the night at friend’s houses and we have had friends here too. Oh the fun to be a kid on summer break!

My house was clean for about 12 hours!

Friday night we went to my friend Alice’s daughter’s surprise birthday party and it was a lot of fun.

On Saturday I had a chance to sleep in and do nothing in the morning and then in the afternoon we went to the Lake and did some shopping.

On Friday I had some good bonding time with my girls while my day care kids were asleep. All the day care kids left early on Friday. Our family actually got to have an early dinner for a change.

I was able to spend a special moment with my friend Faye, who is like a mom to me. She gave me some mom advice and it spoke to my heart like only she can.

I guess that’s all that has gone on this week (at least all I can think of right now). I know not too exciting this week, but time continues to go on.

I also wanted to say thank you to my blogging friends that stop by to say hi and let me know you are thinking about me and praying for me. It truly blesses my heart. I know I have mentioned before that I am dealing with some issues in my life that isn’t blogable and I could still use your prayers for them. I have not yet got victory in them, but am still praying and trusting the Lord to come through (at least trying to trust and not worrying). I know in my heart He will bring Victory, it’s just the journey getting there is some times hard and painful.

My goal this week is to blog more and share some of my thoughts.

If you would like to visit more weekend reflections please visit Judi here.

Until Later,
~Betty~

Thankful Thursday

2007-05-17T10:16:00.000-04:00

This week I am thankful for the gift of LIFE. I am in the middle of facing some hard challenges and I don’t know how things are going to end up, but this week I decided that I was going to enjoy life. I am going to enjoy the good moments in life despite the current hard times & hurt in my life.

Tuesday night was my daughter, Bethany’s, school night at Skate County and we went as a family. I had THE best time. John was taking care of Jody who is still learning to skate, Bethany went around with her school friends, and I was able to skate by myself. It was great exercise and I totally enjoyed it. On the way home that night, while getting the girls ready for bed early so John I could enjoy our “weekly date night” watching House, was when I determined that I really do have many things to be grateful for despite any bad things going on. This didn’t just happen; I had to take action to make it happen.

Along with the hard challenges I am thankful that God gives small blessings:

Family time toghter.

My church, Gracepointe, where I am developing good friendships.

My quiet time I have in the evening to blog, email, & IM my friends.

The May Day Challenge to loose weight and the new bloggers I am meeting.

The Christian radio station (104.7 The Fish) that I get to listen to in the mornings and to be blessed by. I love the morning show with Kevin & Taylor.

The hope that I have to better my life and my family’s life.

The fact that God doesn’t give up on me and loves me in spite of my weaknesses.

The Bible says that Jesus came to give us life and to give it abundantly and I have decided this week to really enjoy life no matter what! I hope you are having a thankful week.

If you would like to read more thankful posts or to join yourself please visit Iris here.

Until Later,
~Betty~

Weigh in Day 1

2007-05-14T22:20:00.000-04:00

Today is the first weigh in of the May Day Challenge. My personal actual weigh in day is on Saturday. This week I have been weighing myself everyday and recording it. Last Saturday 5/5/07 I started this challenge at 212.6 lbs. Since then I have exercised 4 times, been eating more fruits & veggies, and avoiding sugar & white flour. On Saturday 5/12/07 I weighed in at 209.0 which is a 3.6 lb weight loss!!! :) I feel very encouraged by this loss. It is the little boost that I needed.

This week I have been feeling motivated and committed to this journey. I have created myself a notebook to keep a written record of my weigh ins, food log, exercise tracking, and fitness or nutritious info I receive and want to keep on hand. I have found that this is helping me to stay motivated. I really want this challenge and journey to work for me this time. In the past when I wanted to start new changes I realize that I can stay motivated for a couple of weeks, maybe 3, and then I seem to drift away from my goals. I really want this time to be different. I want these actions I am changing to be a lifetime change. Therefore, I am very thankful for this challenge and for the ladies at Tales from the Scales and the accountability & encouragement they are offering. As we are on this journey I want people to keep me accountable. Therefore, as we are on this challenge and you stop by here and notice that I have stopped posting on weigh in days please email me or leave a comment and check in on me to help me stay motivated and encouraged. I will do the same for you too. I am really praying that this will be my life changing moment when I will really stick with the changes I am making and I would greatly appreciate it if you would help me to stick with my goals. I am glad we are not in this alone. We are all in this together!

I am off to see how you all did this week. Best wishes for this week. If you have not joined the May Day Challenge and would like to you can visit Tales from the Scales here and join with us.

Until Later,
Betty

Weekend Reflections

2007-05-14T00:44:00.000-04:00

This week Jody had a kindergarten round up time. Jody got to visit a kindergarten classroom and a chance to ride the school bus. She was all excited. She woke up early, before I got out of bed and was dressed and ready to go before I got out of bed. She is so looking forward to going to school with her sister next year.

I was able to go in and eat lunch with Bethany this week and bought her two friends an ice cream bar. They were so polite and thanked me many times. It feels great to do something for kids when they really show their manners, especially when there is not an adult around prompting them what to say.

This week I started my May Day Weight Loss Challenge. It has been going good so far. I have been staying with my eating and exercise plan. I am really committed to this and I want this challenge to work for me. I have been loosing – which I will report exactly how much on Tuesday. Today, Mother's Day, was my cheat day and I was not as careful about what I ate. I am allowing myself to have one cheat day every week.

On Saturday we had a birthday party to go to in the afternoon and then had a relaxing day at home. I even got to take a nap. I was able to watch a movie with my girls and we enjoyed ourselves.

Mother’s Day is usually kind of hard for me. I had “my moment” today, and then I got over it and enjoyed the rest of the day with my family. After church we went to my favorite restaurant – Pizza Hut, did some shopping, did some visiting, came home John & the girls clean the house for me-while I relaxed, then we went out for milkshakes. It was a good day.

That’s about all for this week. If you would like to read more weekend reflections you can visit Judi here.

Until Later,
~Betty~

8 Random Things About Me

2007-05-11T01:11:00.000-04:00

Since I have started blogging I have not been personally tagged very often to do a meme (maybe only once). Therefore I was thrilled when I happened to be reading Robin’s blog at Robinznest and saw that I was tagged for this 8 Random Things Meme.

Here are the rules I found over at her place.

Each player starts with 8 random facts/habits about themselves.
People who are tagged write a blog post about their own 8 random things and post these rules.
At the end of your blog you need to tag 8 people and post their names.
Don’t forget to leave them a comment and tell them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

Here are 8 Random Things About Me:

Although I graduated from college with a BA, I am a horrible speller. If reading something with missed spelled words offends you, then you won’t enjoy this blog. This is my one weakness right now that makes me the most nervous about finding a job. I am so thankful for spell check and my husband.
My favorite food is pizza and my favorite restaurant is Pizza Hut. I have several inside jokes about this with my friends. They like to tease me about choosing Pizza Hut over any nice or fancy restaurant. Good thing my friends love me enough that when we go out together they will eat there.
I don’t understand most jokes. When I’m in a group I fake it and laugh then I later ask my husband to explain it to me. My famous quote is “I don’t get it!”
While John & I dated I broke up with him 2 different times before I decided to marry him. Basically I was scared of marriage. I didn’t want to end in a divorce, I didn’t want to have a marriage like my parents and I didn’t want to be a mother or wife like my mom. God worked me through my fears and on June 10 we will be celebrating 12 years of marriage and things between us are very good. We have a good marriage, where we can talk about issues and respect each other. He is my best friend and I’m blessed to have him in my life.
During the day I have a glass I keep a drink in and I refill it when it is empty. My husband does not understand this. When he is around and sees an almost empty glass and no one around drinking it, he takes it and puts it in the sink. When I come back to the room for a drink I can never find my glass. I always know when John has been cleaning up. After almost 12 years of marriage we have learned to laugh about it!
I’m learning to be organized. Thank you to Laura at I'm an Organizing Junkie.
While I was growing up my parents were not Christians, but I became a Christian at an early age and grew up in the church and went to a Christian College, Mount Vernon Nazarene College (now University). My parents did become Christians before they died.
It takes me awhile to let down my guard when I meet new people.

I enjoyed doing this. I hope you enjoyed the list.

The 8 people that I tag are:

Smart Girl

2007-05-09T16:04:00.000-04:00

Do you remember me telling you about this conversation about Jody, my five year old, not wanting to go to school because she wanted to learn about Jesus?. Well, let's see if this tops that one.

Last week was Kindergarten registration. While John was filling out paperwork they took Jody to another room and did some screenings. When the teacher brought Jody back she reassured John that she did fine and that she learned something about Jody. Apparently, Jody told the teacher that she knew everything and that she was the smartest one in her family! John looks at the teacher and wonders "How do I respond to that one?" Lacking in the confidence she is not. Have I said lately "Boy are we going to have our hands full!"

Until Later,
~Betty~

May Day Challenge - Day 1

2007-05-08T01:40:00.000-04:00

I am ready to begin the May Day Weight Loss Challenge. I have been wanting to loss weight for a while. I have tried some things here and there, but I always seem to loose my motivation to stick with it. I have started out with so many good intentions and it lasts for about 2 weeks, then I slowly slip away or just don’t see any results so it is easy to not continue with healthy habits. Therefore when I heard about the May Day Challenge, I knew I wanted to be apart of it. The goal is to loose 2lbs weekly from today May 8 through September 18. At that point I should loose 36lbs.

I have always been overweight. As of today I am making some lifelong changes about my eating habits & exercise and I will record my journey to this new life here on my blog. So please join me and help me to stay focused on my goals while I’m on this “Journey to Victory.” I will weigh in and post every Tuesday about how my weight loss journey is going. Therefore please feel free to comment and leave your support, encouragement, and ideas. I really want to succeed in this challenge.

I have been debating if I’m going to post my actual weight or not. A lot of the time I worry about what people will think about me and if people really know my weight – will they still see past it and see & hear my heart? And will that fact change their opinion of me? Well I decided that it doesn’t matter. I have set some goals and I want to succeed in them and in order for me to do that I need to post my progress and be held accountable. Therefore, I have decided to diet naked as Mel - The Amazing Shrinking Mom would say.

I went out and bought a digital scale and as of Saturday I weighed 212.6 lbs. My ideal weight is to be at 150. During this challenge through September 18, I only expect to loose 30lbs and then will continue on to meet my long term goal.

The way I am planning to loose my weight is by following the South Beach/ Glycemic Index diet plan, which basically is to avoid sugar and white flour. I am also planning to exercise 5 times a week (Monday – Friday). I do understand that this needs to be a lifestyle change and not just a temporary fix. I do plan on making these changes for life. Therefore as you read my blog please feel free to offer encouragement and help to keep me accountable.

I am in for the challenge to loose 36lbs by September 18 how about you? The May Day Weight Loss Challenge starts today. If you have not yet joined and want to you can read more about the challenge here and sign up and visit others who have joined here at Tales from the Scales.

Until Later
~Betty~

Thankful Thursday!

2007-05-03T00:37:00.000-04:00

I am thankful for my husband:

who understands that I need some time away with my friends

who is a good dad and can take care of our girls when I am out with friends for a night

who can take care of the house chores when I have a night out

who encourages me to support my friends on their accomplishments

who listens to me when I need to talk

WHO LOVES ME NO MATTER WHAT!!!!

I LOVE YOU JOHN!!!

I am also thankful for friends:

who keep you accountable when setting goals

who take over my responsibilities when I need to do other things

who will stand in a parking lot and talk to you when they are dying on the inside to go home and find out their final grades on their college exams

who listens to your heart and knows what you are saying when you don’t know the words to express

who’s company I enjoy – even when the food & service served from the restaurant isn’t all that good

who inspire me just by living their lives

I am thankful for God’s love and blessings in my life!

To see more Thankful Thursdays visit Iris at Sting My Heart.

Until Later

~Betty~

Reasoning with a 5 year old

2007-04-27T11:29:00.000-04:00

This is the conversation with Jody, my 5 year old (preschooler), this morning:

Mom: Jody it's time to get up for school

Jody: I don't want to go to school. We are just learning about Kindergraden.

Mom: That's good. You will need to know it for next year.

Jody: I don't want to learn about Kindergarden, I want to learn more about Jesus!

Mom: Well, that's good and you will learn about Jesus too, here at home & church.

Jody: I want to learn about Jesus at school.

Mom: You know Jody, Jesus wants you to obey your parents. And you mom says it's time to get up.

Jody: I already know Jesus wants me to obey my parents, I want to learn something NEW about Jesus!

Can you tell we have our hands full already and she's not even in elementary school yet.

Until Later,
~Betty~

Thankful Thursday

2007-04-25T22:59:00.000-04:00

This week I am thankful for God's love in my life. I have been struggling trusting God to provide certain things this week and he has gently come to me and reminded me how much he loves me and is worthy enough to be trusted.

I'm thankful that when my faith is lacking God is still big enough to be trusted. A friend of mine reminded me this week of how faithful the Lord is and how He can be trusted to meet my needs and my heart's desires.

I'm thankful that God understands me and knows how to speak to my heart to get His message across to me. Sometimes in my life certain people will say things or I hear things over & over again, but don't get the message that there are areas in my life that I need to change. I don't always respond when others try to change me. However when God says it is time to change a behavior or attitude, He knows how to speak right to my heart and make the message clear so I don't misunderstand.

I'm thankful for the people God brings into my life to encourage me and inspire me to be more like Jesus. Our church is starting a 40 day Faith Journey Devotional and my friend Alice asked me to be her accountability partner through this and after talking about it we were able to connect on a "God level" and it was encouraging.

I'm thankful that God loves me through my short comings & faults.

Visit Sting My Heart to see more Thankful Thursday's participants.

Until Later,

~Betty~

Back to Blogging

2007-04-23T23:19:00.000-04:00

I sit hear wondering what I should write and how do I get myself back into blogging. I have taken a break and am now ready to come back, but not sure what all to share and what all to write about, therefore I’m just going to start by writing my thoughts.

I have decided that I want to continue blogging, because I want a place and an opportunity to share my thoughts about life, organization, parenting, weightloss, and what the Lord is teaching me in my daily walk with Him and I how feel about that.

There are several issues and God lessons that I could share right now and I am planning to share them and express them here on my blog. Here on my blog, I want to be able to share more of my heart and what God is doing in my life than what I have done in the past. I hope that if anyone is still out there reading this that you would come back and share your heart, thoughts, and encouragement with me as I share how God is walking with me On The Journey to Victory. I also hope that as I share my journey to victory that God will use this blog to encourage others.

I am making some changes in my life. One of the biggest changes I am making is I’m going to leave my comfort zone of staying home and providing child care. I am going to look for a job and this scares me and makes me nervous. I have been thinking about what kind of job I want and where I want to work and where I do not want to work. I am finding that I know in my heart what kind of job I want, but in many ways it is hard to describe. I wonder if the type of job I want even exists (that is for pay at least). I would like to do something in children’s programming in a Christian atmosphere. I am considering many different options and I need to pray more about it and rely on God to open the door He wants me to go through. For some reason I feel like I’m on my own and feel like I have to find the perfect job all on my own. That is when I get scared and worried. I am consistently reminding myself that I need to trust the Lord to take care of these issues. I am also looking for a work environment where I can grow professionally. Knowing what can be out there and where I came form before also concerns me. I was talking with my friend Pat this week and she reminded me that when we have faith our God is big enough to provide me a job that would satisfy my heart’s desire and to be able to meet the financial obligation that I need it to accomplish. After that phone conversation the Lord convicted me of how little faith I have right now. Because I believe the Lord is moving me in a new direction and moving me out of my comfort zone, I feel that I am fighting fear and insecurities. I did not realize how comfortable I have become. Although things are uncomfortable and I’m scared I am pressing forward. I am just beginning this job search journey, however already this week I have made some calls that have not been easy for me to do. Inside I want to run and say forget it, however I have made myself (through a lot of self talk) make the phone calls that I think I need to make to find a job. For my personality type this is not easy. It’s funny how I can say all the right things in my mind and think yep that is exactly the way I need to do it. When the time comes down to making the call I can think of all kinds of excuses not to do it. I guess that is the difference of knowing how and what to do and doing what you know you should do. You would think that when I know what I should do and know how to do it that it should be easy to do, but it’s not for me. I have to force myself to do what I know I should do. I try to convince myself by imagining how I will feel once the action is completed. As hard as this is I know the Lord is walking me through this and I will grow from this experience. As I have realized that I am lacking faith & trust right now these have been my top priority on my prayer list this week. I will continue to walk on this journey and will see the victory in this issue. I will share the process and progresses with any of you that find yourself here reading about my journeys to victory. Hopefully you will come back again. I am open to your thoughts, encouragement and prayers.

It feels good to be back blogging again. I have missed it.

Until Later,
~Betty~

UNTIL LATER

2007-04-11T14:42:00.000-04:00

I know I have not been posting for awhile and I'm not sure what I am going to do with my blog. Currently, I am dealing with some issues that are not "blogable" for me. Therefore, I'm really not sure what all to write about.

I'm praying about this blog and whether or not to continue or to refocus. If I don't post for awhile just know that I am still considering some different options. I still plan on being around, reading, and commenting on different blogs.

UNTIL LATER?
~Betty~

Weekend Reflection

2007-04-01T18:53:00.000-04:00

I am going to really try to complete this Weekend Refection. For weeks now I have started several weekend reflections and never seem to complete them. This week started out rough. I had this sense of frustration and hopelessness. You can read about it here. I have really been trying to pray through it and searching the scriptures. I still don’t have complete victory over it, but I don’t feel as hopeless and depressed. After praying through on Monday I feel better even if the circumstances have not changed. I believe pouring my heart out to God makes a difference and He then begins to work in our lives. I am asking Him to do something new and different in my heart & life. I really want to see him in a new way. Now I am waiting to see what he does and what he wants to teach me.

Another thing that happen was my daughter, Bethany, was on the radio this week. Our Christian radio station was giving away tickets to High School Musical on Ice. In order to get the tickets you had to call in and sing while you were in the shower. Bethany got up early and on the radio sang “When there was me and you” from High School Musical. In October she now gets to go see the show. We all were excited and proud of her.

On Saturday John went to the Final Four and worked in the concession stands with our youth group as a fundraiser. He had a ball. Being from Ohio and being a Buckeye fan, he was thrilled to be able to watch parts of the game and be there for free. He also gets to go back on Monday.

While John was gone all day on Saturday, that left just the girls and I to hang out with no other major plans. We had a good time – better than I thought it would be. We did some shopping and some cleaning. Bethany & I worked in the yard and had some good bonding time.

That’s what happened with me this past week. Visit Judi here if you would like to read more Weekend Reflections or if you would like to participate.

Until Later
~Betty~

No Foolin'

2007-04-01T17:58:00.000-04:00

Thirteen years ago today my husband asked me to marry him - no foolin'. At that time it was Easter weekend and we were on spring break from college. We came to Georgia to visit my friends and so they could meet John and check him out. I knew things were getting serious with John & I and I wanted their opinion of him and make sure they didn't sense or see something that I didn't.

When we left college that weekend, I had a feeling that he was going to propose to me on Easter Sunday morning. My friend Caryl told him that I knew, therefore, he changed his plans. He chose Good Friday to ask me. He got up early, cooked me breakfast, and brought it to me in bed. (We did stay is seperate rooms. My room was upstairs, his was downstairs). He woke me up and asked me to marry him. I remember being tired and thinking "why is he waking me up this early?" "This better be good or he is dead." Well, he didn't die! :) lol

When he asked me on "Good Friday" he failed to remember that it was also April Fools Day. After I ate my breakfast and I admired my ring, I went down to his room and told him that I changed my mind and I didn't want to get married. I could tell his heart sank and then I said "April Fools!" He has a good sense of humor and we still laugh about it today!

Until Later,
~Betty~

Getting Victory!

2007-03-26T13:21:00.000-04:00

For several weeks now there has been a several situations going on in my life that I have been struggling with. Little things have just been adding to it. It hasn’t seem appropriate to blog about it, I have not talked to any friends about it (just John), but have been carrying the burden around inside of me. It must be showing in me, because several of my friends have been asking me if I am Okay and making little comments that it looks like something is bothering me. Well there was, but I just didn’t know how to share it with someone and I just wasn’t ready to share it. I have been praying about it, but not really getting or expecting victory. This weekend I was ready to talk about what was going on and wanted to unload on someone. I tried to share and called several different friends that I thought might understand or at least listen to me. However, the timing never seemed to work. I called my best friend Pat and she was on her way out. I told her I just called to whine she said the next time we talk she will bring the cheese (we have the type of relationship that we can do that) Lol J. I did try to talk to several other friends, but it just didn’t seem to be the right time. I believe this was God getting me to whole heartily rely on Him and waiting for him to deliver me, not someone else.

During nap time I started reading Psalm 34 and came to the computer and typed out my heart to the Lord and wanted to share my process here on my blog.

Today I need God to do something in my heart and life. I have a situation going on and I need God’s victory.

Dear Lord,

I want out of this situation that I am in. I feel miserable, unhappy, and hopeless. I also don’t feel like I should really ask you to help me out. I feel like it is my own fault that I’m here so what right do I have to ask for your help? I don’t have a right, but I don’t know what else to do. I am crying out to you because I can’t do it on my own – even if it is my own fault I am where I am. I am hoping you will have mercy on me and love me anyway. Please deliver me out of this hopelessness and show me a new way.

Psalm 34:6
This poor man called, and the Lord heard him;
He saved him out of all his troubles.

Psalm 34:9 - 10
Fear the Lord, you his saints,
for those who fear him lack nothing.
The lions may grow weak and hungry,
But those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.

Psalm 34:17 - 19
The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them;
He delivers them from all their troubles.
The Lord is close to the brokenhearted
And saves those who are crushed in spirit,
A righteous man may have many troubles,
But the Lord delivers him from them all;

Lord I am seeking you and I need you to deliver me. Please forgive me for where I lack and where I was wrong. Teach me to be better and to do different. Please give me the wisdom that I need right now and that I am seeking. Help me to overcome, to be victorious, and to trust you. Help me not to believe Satan’s lies in my life. I give you this situation in my life and will wait on You. I will no longer carry this burden and worry about this situation. I give you my desires and my wants and will accept whatever you give back to me. Lord I am going to rejoice in the blessing you give me and not be jealous, envious, or less fulfilled because of what you give others. I am looking to you to fill my heart and provide my needs. I am not looking to a friend, pastor, or anyone else to deliver me. You are my deliver and rescuer. It is in you that I trust. I am relying on your strength.

I love you Lord! I am seeking you! You are amazing! I want to be loved by You. I trust that you hear me and that you are bringing me victory. I am sensing your presence.

There is song called People Need the Lord, I have learned that not only do non Christian people need the Lord, but Christian people need the Lord too. I need the Lord!

I am moving on and trusting the Lord to do a new thing in my life. I am going to rejoice, live, and enjoy God’s freedom. I am breaking free of these chains I have been in the past few weeks. I will not let Satan hold me down any longer. I will not be bound by his lies. I serve a risen God who has overcome the world. I am more than a conquer in Christ Jesus!

James 4:7 & 8 (personalized)
I submit myself to You O God. I resist the devil, now he is fleeing from me! I am coming near to You O God and trusting You will come near to me. I want to humble myself before you Lord and trust that you will lift me up.

I will endure.

I love you Lord! I give you the glory and victory in my life. I worship you.

When I started typing I felt very defeated and hopeless. God has brought me through and I am thankful and now determined. I will continue to Praise the Lord! Now I am waiting to see how God will bring certain changes in my life, but no matter what He has already changed me through this prayer!

Until Later,
~Betty~

SMART Habits Saturday

2007-03-24T22:38:00.000-04:00

It is SMART Habit Saturday time again. If you are new to SHS you can click here to find out more about it.

I have been struggling with my goals for a couple of weeks now. I wasn’t sure if I was even going to participate this week, but I need to continue no matter how I am feeling. Here are my list of goals that I am doing well on and have been making a difference in our home:
Clean Kitchen sink nightly
Load of Laundry once a day
Declutter something once a day
Eating more fruits & veggies

Here is my list of goals that I am continuing to work on
Exercise Monday – Friday
Drink water daily
Reading my Bible daily

This week I am going to refocus on these goals and to help me with my exercise, eating better, and to loose weight I am going to find and organize healthy recipes that I can cook for myself and my family. In other words I am going to put a little more effort into cooking and planning for my family.

I am thankful for participating in SHS and for all the encouragement from the other participants. If you have wanted to set some goals and make some changes in your household and have not yet participated in SMART Habit Saturday now would be the time to get started.
Anyone who participates in SHS for two weeks in a row by the end of March will be entered into a drawing to win Laura’s 5 free Organizing Bags, three large and two small! To join SHS or to visit other participants just click here.

Until Later

~Betty~

Two Years Ago Today

2007-03-23T21:55:00.000-04:00

Two years ago today we signed our name over and over again on paper after paper until I began to wonder if it would ever be over. It was finally over, we said our goodbyes, and we were given keys to our new house. We became homeowners for the first time and how proud and excited we felt.

Today to celebrate our “House’s Birthday” as Jody told her teacher today, we invited our friends over who helped us move in to have Dominos Pizza just like we had two years ago on move in day. When I went to pick up the pizza I saw the previous owner, who I may add I have not seen at all in two years since we signed all those papers. I thought that was kind of cool! I reassured him that we are happy with the house and the neighborhood. He seemed happy to hear that.

God has blessed us over & over and for that I am grateful.

Until Later,
~Betty~

High Maintenance or Low Maintenance?

2007-03-23T09:06:00.000-04:00

Our local Christian radio station has an awesome morning show that I love to listen to every morning. Kevin & Taylor in the Morning are AWESOME! This morning they were talking about whether you would say you were high maintenance compared to your girl friends or other women you come into contact with. They were encouraging people to call in, of course I did not call in. However, I called my husband and asked him "What would you say if somebody asked you if I was high or low maintenance?" At first he was quiet, then he said "Low maintenance, all I have to do is give you a Mt. Dew and tell you to go blog!" So there you have it blogging keeps me low maintenance!

Until Later,
~Betty~

Thankful Thursday

2007-03-22T23:18:00.000-04:00

Today I'm thankful that my husband loves me!
I am thankful for a husband who loves me through my moods and when people and things irritate me.
I'm thankful that my husband is there for me when things that you can't talk to others about are not going well.
I'm thankful that I can count on my husband to be there and support me when I'm being irrational and overreact. When I ask him what he thinks he just answers "This is one of those times when there isn't a right answer, right?"
I'm thankful that my husband has my back even when he doesn't agree with me.
I'm thankful that my husband loves me enough to forgive me when I invite 30 plus people over to our house for Easter celebration and forgot to run it by him first.
I'm thankful that my husband loves me.

Please visit Sting my Heart for more Thankful Thursdays.

Until Later,

~Betty~

SMART Habit Saturday

2007-03-19T12:30:00.000-04:00

Well I did eat healthier this week and walked around my neighborhood about everyday. However, I did not loose any weight this week. Yes I am a little discouraged, but I am not going to give up. This week I am still going to try to eat healthier and to walk the neighborhood. I am going to cut back on the tea drinking and really try to drink more water:( . I am still continuing on my other goals of keeping my sink clean, one load of laundry a day, scripture reading, and declutter at least once a day.

To learn more about SMART Habit Saturday click here. If you would like to join SMART Habit Saturday click here. Thanks for Lara The Lazy Organizer for being our host.

Until Later,

~Betty~

Thankful Thursday

2007-03-15T00:12:00.000-04:00

This week I wanted to share what it is that I am thankful for about my house. We have talked about selling our house and moving closer to our church. Right now it is just talk, but I wanted to reflect on why I am thankful for the current home we have.

I am thankful that I have 2 bathrooms and I have a garden tub to enjoy hot bubble baths by myself

I am thankful that I have enough room for my girls to have a separate playroom than their bedroom

I am thankful for a fireplace

I am thankful for a dinning room and a breakfast area

I am thankful for a garage

I am thankful for a yard the kids can play in

I am thankful to be living in a subdivision away from traffic

I am very thankful that we have been able to afford this house and have made each payment on it.

I don't want to sound cocky about my house - there are certain things I don't like about it and I would change, but I'm emphasizing the positive and the things that I do like. For those who do not know me after 11 years of marriage this is the first home we have been able to buy. I just don't want anyone to think that I take this for granted or that this has just been handed to me with no work or worries, because that is not the case. We have had our struggles. I just don't want to turn people off and sound like I'm bragging, because that is not my intent. I am just trying to reflect on the blessing God has provided for us. I hope you understand my heart as I share this.

For more Thankful Thursday please visit Sting My Heart.

Until Later,

~Betty~

SMART Habit Saturday # 10

2007-03-10T23:22:00.000-05:00

I am so glad to be participating in SMART Habit Saturday. If you are new to SHS and want to know more information on this please visit Lara The Lazy Organizer here.

As I look around my house and look at my list of goals I am realizing how much of a difference I am making in my home. The dishes and the counter top are cleaned, my laundry is caught up, I have decluttered my girl’s clothes, areas of the house are becoming decluttered and all that feels good. I am really starting to see a difference in things. Not only am I noticing how things are looking I also see how it is affecting my family and they seem to be better at picking up after themselves, or maybe I’m quicker to remind them to put things away, but, whatever, it is working! I am very happy with myself in these areas.

As I am looking at my goals and I see what is working, I also see what is not working. I am still struggling with my exercise and water drinking. This has been a challenge for me. However, I am not going to give up on these goals. I really do want to be healthier and to loose weight. This week I am going to work on these goals. My plan is to walk around our neighborhood once a day this week. The weather here is getting nicer and I can easily walk during the day with my day care kids. Also I am going to decrease my goal amount of water to drink. Instead of 64 oz I am going to try 48 oz. I have a bottle that I keep in the refrigerator and instead of trying to drink 2 of them I am going to try to drink 1 a day. Hopefully that will help me to get back into drinking water. Along with trying to be healthier my new goal this week is to eat more fruits & vegetables and less sugar. I am going to try to stay completely away from sugar this week, except I am going to allow myself to drink sweet tea. I have decreased the amount of sugar I put in my tea. I have already gone to the grocery store and have made my menu plan for next week, so hopefully I have set myself up for success. We shall see. I will let you know how it goes next week.

If you want to join SMART Habits please visit Lara the Lazy Organizer here.

Until Later,
~Betty~

The Ultimate Blog Party

2007-03-09T10:47:00.000-05:00

Welcome to my blog party hosted by 5 minutes for mom. I know I am coming in at the last minute of this, but I have not been in a “Partying” mood this week. However, I decided that I need to do this to make me feel better. Therefore welcome (if anyone is still around that is)!

At any party you have to have food so I wanted to start off with my favorite party/ snack recipe. It is Pico de Gallo and tortilla chips. Here is a picture & the recipe:

A can of petite diced tomatoes
A sweet onion
1 tablespoon of cilantro leaves (I use the dried spice compared to the fresh)
A bag of Tortilla chips
Dash of salt (optional)
Dash of sugar (optional)

Dice & finely chop the onion. In a medium bowl mix tomatoes, onion, cilantro, salt, & sugar together and serve with tortilla chips. You can eat it right away or chill it first. If you like things hot & spicy you could make it that wat. I don’t like things hot so I make mine mild.

Another food that I served at a party that was a hit was what we call Blog Meatballs. I originally got this recipe from Lara the Lazy Organizer. Sorry I don't have a picture. Here is the recipe:

Meatballs:
1 pound ground beef, extra lean
½ cup milk
½ cup saltine crackers
1 T onion, chopped
Dash salt and pepper

Sauce:
¼ cup apple cider vinegar (you could use any type of vinegar)
1 cup ketchup
¾ cup brown sugar
2 T onion, chopped
Dash salt and pepper

Mix first 5 ingredients. Make meatballs with 1 ½” ice cream scoop. Drop into baking dish. Mix last 5 ingredients. Pour over meatballs. Bake covered at 350 for 1 hour. Remove cover and bake for 30 minutes more or until sauce has started to caramelize.
When I served these at a dinner party they were delicious and all my guests loved them.

Other food that I love and would share with you is pizza and bread sticks. So help yourself to some:

Along with food we have to have drinks. Here are my favorite drinks:

Sweet Tea & Mt. Dew

As we are eating let’s make our way around my blog and I will tell you a little about me then you can leave me a comment and tell me about you then I will come over to your party.

I started blogging last summer and I love it. I love listening (reading) about other people’s lives and to be able to share my thoughts and heart. In a group setting I tend to be quieter and just sit back and listen, blogging allows me to do that and also to be able to express myself on my own terms. I love to read other blogs and encourage people when I can and I love to get comments and be encouraged myself. Some of the blogs I read people share their heart in a humorous way, some in a serious way, and some in an informative way, and some in just everyday talk. I enjoy hearing how we moms are in this together whatever the circumstance and issues we may be dealing with currently. Some bloggers know how to tell a story and draw you in as if you were right there. Some bloggers know how to draw you in and touch you heart. Some bloggers give you ideas and teach you how to be better at organizing, cooking, crafts, planning, and just an overall a better person. Some bloggers are excellent writers and are trying to publish a book. I blog, not because of my writing skills (trust me), but because I love the connection with other moms around the world. It’s great to know that whatever our time schedule when we can fit blogging in we are there for each other.

My blog best benefits me by using it to keep me accountable and to set goals for my daily & everyday life. If you look at my sidebar you will see that I have joined Thankful Thursday, SMART Habit Saturdays, and Weekend Reflections. These are memes that enables me to use my blog time to become a better person. Just like the name of my blog says I’m on the journey to victory and I will get there one step at a time.

Thank you for stopping by. You are welcome to come back again and join me on this journey and we can encourage each other. Visit 5 Minutes for Mom for more parties.

Until Later,
~Betty~

SMART Habit Saturday # 9

2007-03-05T16:00:00.000-05:00

I am running 2 days behind on everything. But here is my SMART Habit Saturday update.

If you have wanted to set some goals and make some changes in your household and have not yet participated in SMART Habit Saturday now would be the time to get started. I have some great news.

Anyone who participates in SHS for two weeks in a row by the end of March will be entered into a drawing to win Laura’s 5 free Organizing Bags, three large and two small!

Now that would be enough motivation for me to start participating. I would love to have these Organizing Bags. Therefore, if you have been thinking about joining go here for more information and join us.

I have been working hard trying to declutter and organize my house. Things around here are starting to look pretty good. I want to be able to keep my house always looking good. Therefore for Week 9 my new goal is to declutter my house 15 minutes a day.

How I did this past week:
I am noticing I am doing better on my organizational goals than I am on my healthly goals. I still have a lot of work to do to make these goals a habit. However, this is a process & a journey right? So I will continue. Here is how I did:

Week 1 Clean kitchen sink nightly This is still going strongly.

Week 2 Drink 8 glasses of water a day I am not doing well with this habit. I am trying to refocus.

Week 3 Exercise Monday – Friday I have struggled with this also. I am not doing good here.

Week 4 Read my Bible daily I still need to work on this habit. I am reading more than I was, but have not been doing it daily.

Week 5 Sort my girls clothes Completed

Week 6 Organizing tax receipts Completed

Week 7 Continue with same goals Continuing

Week 8 A load of laundry once a day I did pretty well with this goal this week. I have our laundry all caught up and it feels good. Now only if I could be doing this good on my health habits!

If you want to participate please visit The Lazy Organizer here.

Until Later,
Betty

Thankful Thursday

2007-03-01T09:49:00.000-05:00

During our family Prayer time at night we always go around and tell what we are thankful for that happened during the day or the week. Therefore, I decided that I want to add this to my blog. So every Thursday I am going to share things in my life that I am thankful for.

This has been a difficult week and I am feeling discouraged and disapppointed right now, but I know there are still things in my life that I am thankful for no matter how I am feeling.

I am thankful for the blessing of friendship. Since we have moved to Georgia God has blessed John & I with a group of friends that have blessed me more then what I can express.

I am thankful that I was able to talk on the phone to Pat, my best friend from Lima. It was like a breath of fresh air. Talking with Pat encourages, inspires, and sometimes convictes me in my spiritual walk.

I'm thankful for the opportunity to blog. It has been helping to stay accountable to my daily home task, to be a better mom, better wife, and better Christian. I have been so encouraged by some of the blogging friends I have made and by reading their stories & lives.

As always I'm thankful for my family. We are together no matter how we feel or what is happening in our lives.

Dear Lord, Thank you for all these things that I have listed and so many more that I have not listed.

Visit Sting My Heart for more Thankful Thursday entries.

Until Later,
Betty

Weekend Reflection

2007-02-25T22:54:00.000-05:00

I have missed several Weekend Reflections, therefore I made it a point to post this week.

This was our last week of Upward basketball. Therefore I am looking forward to a break in our schedule.

I was able to get caught up on a lot of jobs around the house

We have been dealing with Pink Eye. Bethany had it on Sunday you can read about that here. Jody was sent home from school with it on Wednesday. It wasn't a big deal and it's over now.

On Friday I went to a neighborhood friend’s house for a ladies night. We had dinner, talked and scrap booked. FUN!

On Saturday we had some friends over. The guys watched a bad science fiction movie together, while we women discussed our lives, and the kids played together. We all laughed so hard and enjoyed each other. It was fun.

On Sunday I enjoyed church. We went out for lunch and both girls went to a friend’s house so John & I had a nice afternoon together with no children.

Our week ended on a good & fun time. I hope your week has been good. If you are participating in weekend reflections let me know in my comment section and I will come and visit you.

Visit Judi at mommy-of-two for more weekend reflections.

Until Later,
~Betty~

SMART Habit Saturday

2007-02-24T23:46:00.000-05:00

It is SMART Habit Saturday time again

If you have wanted to set some goals and make some changes in your household and have not yet participated in SMART Habit Saturday now would be the time to get started. I have some great news.

Anyone who participates in SHS for two weeks in a row by the end of March will be entered into a drawing to win Laura’s 5 free Organizing Bags, three large and two small!

Now that would be enough motivation for me to start participating. I would love to have these Organizing Bags. I think I want them as much as An Ordanary Mom wants them. lol Therefore, if you have been thinking about joining go here for more information and join us.

I received a phone call this week from a friend who does not blog and she told me that she has been following my blog and has been encouraged by me recording my goals that she has set certain goals for her house. I was shocked, but encouraged. It is a great feeling knowing that as I write about what is helping me, someone is reading it and in turn is making a difference in them.

Okay time for my new goal this week. For Week 8 my new goal is to do a load of laundry once a day. I plan to start a load in the morning after my shower before I get the girls up and ready. Then when I get back from taking Jody to school I will put the load in the dryer.

How I did this past week:
Week 1 Clean kitchen sink nightly I have been doing very good with this goal. This has become an established habit.

Week 2 Drink 8 glasses of water a day I have struggled with this one this week. I need to work on this and just do it.

Week 3 Exercise Monday – Friday I have struggled with this also. I was doing pretty well for a few weeks and now it’s hard to get back into it. I am going to refocus this week. I have started a new post on Fridays that I am calling Fitness Friday. I will post there what my progress is on losing weight and getting healthier.

Week 4 Read my Bible daily I have done better with this goal than the last two, but still need to work on this.

Week 5 Sort my girls clothes I have completed this and have gotten rid of 6 bags of clothes. YEAH! :)

Week 6 Organizing tax receipts With the help from my husband this chore has been completed. YEAH! :)

Week 7 Continue with same goals I was able to complete some goal, but not all. I will continue on.

If you want to participate please visit The Lazy Organizer here.

Until Later,

Betty

Fitness Friday

2007-02-23T00:56:00.000-05:00

Wanting to find a way to use my blog ~~habit~~ ~~addiction~~ hobby to help me be a better person and help me achieve many of my goals, I am going to start a weekly post that I will call Fitness Friday. I have been wanting to loose weight and have been making some good efforts in my weight loss journey. However, I am always looking for ways to keep myself accountable and encouraged to achieve my weight loss goals. I read Mel's blog about her weight loss journey and Motivation Moments and these are encouraging. Then I recently just found The Clef of the Rock blog and Sarah does a Fitness Friday post where she shares her knowledge about health and fitness.

I decided that I am going to start posting a Fitness Friday post where I will record my weight loss journey. I want to use this as a time to share my progress, the ups & downs of the past week, and what I learn on this weight loss journey. I will also report any weight changes I may have gained, lost , or remained the same. I will also record any goals I have regarding weight loss, fitness, or health.

Let me encourage you to comment on these posts and let me know you are reading that way it will help me to be accountable and stay motivated to continue on my weight loss journey. I am also open to any thoughts, suggestions, and ideas you would like to share.

I will start this 1st Fitness Friday off by saying that I have not done very well this past week, which is a big reason why I want to start recording my progress here. I was doing really good there for a few weeks, drinking my water & exercising daily - then I missed a couple of days and now it is hard to get back into the routine. My fitness goal for this next week is to drink 8 glasses of water a day and to exercise 5 times, 3 days of aerobic and 2 days of toning.

I will let you know next week how it goes. Again please let me know what you think and any suggestions you may have to help. Also please share anything that you have found that has helped you to become healthier or has helped you lose weight.

Until Later,
~Betty~

You are Invited!

2007-02-21T14:34:00.000-05:00

I'm sure most everyone has already heard that 5 minutes for mom is hosting the Ultimate Blog Party party from March 2 - 9. You can click here to find out all the details of the party. There will be prizes, food, and a chance to hang out with friends and to meet new ones. Consider this your invitation to stop by my blog and say "Hi!" I will also be going around and meeting new people (bloggers). This should be a lot of fun.

Also "Get Out of that Pit" by Beth Moore is one of the books that I checked out at our church library a couple of weeks ago. I was excited when I learned that Boomama & Robin had the idea to start a book club discussing this book. I have never been in a book club before, but am going to join this one. On March 9, we are to post our thoughts about this book and link back to Robin. If you want to find out more about this or want to join please click here for Boomama or here for Robin. This will be a busy week for Blogg World, but O so much fun. Now we can end the week of parting on a spiritual note! Please join me for this great week!

Until Later,

Betty

Not Plan A, or B, but Plan C!

2007-02-19T14:01:00.000-05:00

It started out as a normal Sunday morning. Everyone getting up late, rushing around, girls fighting and trying to get out the door to arrive at church early – NOT! In order to throw us off and think we have entered a different world our Sunday morning was calm, which is not normal. The girls woke up to get dress and helped each other and did not fight with each other or with John & me. I had time to cook dinner and put it in the crock pot for after church. In the meanwhile John was packing extra clothes for after church. Apparently, we did not communicate about our plans for after church – which never ever ever happens in any marriage :). I mean how dare him not to read my mind and know that I was planning on coming home after church and not sticking around all day at church and wait for the evening class we are taking. (Plan A) Why would it be important for me to “use my words” (as I tell my kids) and tell him? I’m appalled! lol :) Our first 1 – 2 years of marriage it seemed like all our fights I mean discussions always had the phase “I am not a mind reader.” I have gotten better after 11 years, but occasionally I slip and now we have learned to laugh at each other and instead of having “discussions” about it we make jokes about it.

You see we live 25 miles away from the church that we attend and it takes about 30 -35 minutes one way to get to church. So when we go to church in the morning and have to be back in the evening we don’t always go all the way home. There has been children’s quiz practice in the afternoon so we have stayed for that. Now quizzing is over for the year and we have more time off on Sunday afternoons. That is why I was thinking it would be nice to come home after church for a few hours. Apparently, that’s not what John was thinking.

Well, when we did end up communicating about our plans and since I started dinner and he had packed clothes to change we decided to take our meal to church and we would go over to our friend, Caryl’s, house (who lives closer to our church) and combine meals. (Plan B) Now Caryl & I have been friends since childhood and I would feel comfortable to invade I mean “invite myself and family” over to her house at the last minute. This is my friend that last Sunday I took the freedom and invited myself and family over to her house when she & her family were out of town. A little to my credit, the night before on the phone she did mention that she was thinking about inviting us over so we didn’t have to come all the way home and then go back to church. I also want to mention that I would not take this kind of freedom in every friendship that I have.

Okay back to our Sunday plans. We get to church, plugged in the crock pot, got a snack from our café area, sign our children into their classrooms and were getting ready to go into worship service.

Then plan C started to happen. Bethany’s Sunday school teacher, who is also a nurse, brought Bethany to us and said she had pink eye and could not stay around the other children. John (sigh) looks at me and says I knew we should have just stayed in bed this morning. As a mom, I felt embarrassed that I brought my daughter to church with pink eye. Therefore, we left church and went to Wal-mart to see what kind of medicine we could find over the counter and then we were going home for the afternoon. We talked to the pharmacist and he recommended us not to buy something over the counter and to call our doctor and see if he would just call in a prescription. Not knowing what to expect since it was a Sunday, I called. To my surprise the doctor’s office had a doctor on call and they did just call in a prescription and we just had to pick it up and because of our insurance it didn’t cost us anything.

Although we missed church and spent the time at Wal-mart we were home for a calm & relaxing afternoon at home. I even got to watch some of the Daytona 500 and called my niece to pick on her about her favorite driver, who is different than mind, before I went back to church for our class.

Now only if every Sunday was like this just minus the pink eye and the trip to Wal-mart.

Until Later,
Betty

SMART Habit #7

2007-02-17T01:02:00.000-05:00

I’m back for SMART Habit Saturday. If you are new to SMART Habit Saturday you can click here to learn about it.

I have to be honest here and I did not do very well at all with my goals this week. I took the week off from Blogging so I could get a lot of work done. Do you think that happened? NOOOOOOOOO! In reality I got less done. That doesn’t make sense to me, but that’s what happened to me this week. I think that by blogging it keeps me accountable to what I need to do and reading other blogs encourages me and gives me ideas of how to keep balance in my life and get done what I need to get done. I was considering quitting blogging; however I have decided to continue and to use my blog to meet my needs.

Therefore, I am not adding a new habit this week, but will try to get back on track and continue to work on my current goals to make them a habit. I did realize this week that keeping my kitchen sink clean has pretty much become a must do habit. My husband has even realized that this must be done and has helped out many times. Now I need to get working on getting my other goals to become a must do habit. Speaking of my other goals, I have to share what my husband gave me for Valentine’s Day. One of my one time goals was to organize my taxes and receipts and I have been struggling with this. For Valentine’s Day John agreed to take an evening (and longer) of his and do this task for me. He is even setting up a system on the computer so that it will be easy to enter the information monthly from this point on and has agreed to take over that job for the next year. I received the best gift ever and money wise it did not cost us a cent – just a lot of time & effort. Oh how grateful I am!

The other goal I did Okay on this week was my devotions. I wanted to spend daily time reading the Bible. I did not read the Bible everyday this week, but I did spend a lot of time in prayer and writing in my prayer journal. This week I am planning to spend more time reading the Bible and praying.

Good luck to everyone who is participating in SMART Habits. If you would like to join or cheer on those who have, please visit Lara, The Lazy Organizer.

Until Later,
~Betty~

Jody, Upward, Salvation

2007-02-16T09:57:00.000-05:00

I know I’m supposed to be taking a break from blogging this week, but I just had to share this story. I want to give you the background information before I tell you what I really want to tell you.

Jody, my 5 year old, is in Upward Cheerleading and I am the adult coach. She has practice every Monday and her games are on Saturdays. At last Saturday’s game her behavior was so bad that, as her mother (not her coach), I took her out of her game and made her go sit with John, her dad, in the sound booth. I know that Jody has a stubborn streak in her and can make life difficult at times. However, on Saturday I saw intense disobedient streak in her and she was determined not to do what I wanted her to do. This was very different than what I have seen in her before. Therefore, as a mom, I felt very discouraged and defeated and not sure how I was going to handle the behavior. After I separated Jody and she had time to sit, her behavior did get better for the rest of the day. –Good thing!

Monday night we had cheer practice. During every Upward practice there is a set time for a short devotional. This past Monday our devotional was the plan of salvation. I went through the material, explained that sin was the bad things that we do and that Jesus wants to forgive us if we ask him. I also explained that Jesus wants us to live for him and come into our hearts and lives. Then I prayed for each of the girls. I told the girls if they want to or if they do ask Jesus into their hearts to let me know.

Wednesday morning as I was getting the girls ready for school, Jody came running out of the bathroom and here is the conversation:

Jody: I have been talking, but really it was praying to Jesus.

Mom: Well that’s good

Jody: I prayed that Jesus would make me die

Mom: WHAT?

Jody: Yea that way He could make me again and He could make me good.

Mom: Oh! You mean to make you a new creation

Jody: Yeah. I just asked Jesus into my heart and to forgive me of the bad things I do like you said at cheerleading. I’m not going to talk anymore and I’m going to be good at cheerleading.

As my heart was melting and wanted to cry. This made a mom very proud and happy.

You know that Jody was busy on the phone and at church Wednesday night telling anyone who would listen what she did. Not only was I proud, but she was too.

I am so glad that we put the girls in Upward this year. Jody is a little young for Upward, but I talked to those in charge and asked them if I helped out if I could sign Jody up for cheerleading now there will be eternal benefits for them saying yes. Thanks Doug & Michelle.

I am feeling very honored and blessed.

(Of course you would know that Satan is not happy and is fighting me this week. I have really been struggling with my oldest daughter, Bethany. This will encourage us to pray more.)

Until Later,
Betty

Blogging Break

2007-02-11T23:18:00.000-05:00

I have a lot to do this week so I will be taking a break form blogging. I hope to return on Saturday for SMART Habits.

Along with the things I need to accomplish this week, I am going to be doing a lot of soul searching and deal with some issues that the Lord is laying on my heart.

Please be praying for me this week while I deal with the issues of Parenting, Family Time, Job, Financial, Time Management, Blogging, and Church Activities - bacisly LIFE! The Lord is telling me that I need to make some changes and I need to be honest with myself and accept what the Lord is telling me. Hopefully, I will be back next week and let you know what God is doing in my life.

Until Later,
Betty

Weekend Reflections

2007-02-11T16:06:00.000-05:00

WEEKEND REFLECTIONS!

It has been a while since I have posted a weekend reflection so I thought I would do one this week since I have some time before Monday comes.

This week started out pretty good. On Sunday a friend our mine from church that has been dealing with a lot of hard issues decided to give his life over to the Lord and become a Christian. We have been praying so hard for him. PRAISE THE LORD! The would be the best think that has happened this week.

On a less exciting thing Bethany, my 9 year old, had a Bingo night at her school. We all went as a family and had a good time. Then we had some relaxing time at home.

Throughout this week I have had special moments with my husband. He has just been extra nice to me this week. Don't get me wrong he is always good to me, but this week it's just been a little extra and I have enjoyed it. I am so blessed to have John as my husband. I am so thankful that he supports me with what I do and what I want to do.

Friday night we invited two families over for dinner and a movie and that was fun. We did something different and had breakfast for dinner. We watched "Facing the Giants". The movie has a very good message and we all enjoyed watching it.

Saturday was Upward and we were at our church all day long. I really struggled with Jody's (my five year old) behavior. I ended up taking her out of her cheerleading game. I made her sit in the sound booth with her dad, while I went back and coached the rest of the cheerleaders. After she was away from the situation she seemed to calm down and did better the rest of the day.

Today, Sunday, was a good time at church. We had a Sunday School Class party after church. It was a going away party for one of our members who is moving out of state. I am president for the class, therefore I had certain responsibilities to help out with for the party. It all went well and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. Then we had some time to relax at a friend's house, before having to go back to church for a class we are taking and kids praise team practice.

This week went pretty well, it went fast and we stayed busy.

Until Later,
Betty

SMART Habit Saturday

2007-02-10T01:41:00.000-05:00

It is SMART Habit Saturday time again. If you want to know more about Smart Habit Saturday please visit The Lazy Organizer here.

Being able to list my goals and trying to set up daily routines and posting them here on my blog is helping me to accomplish my goals. Although I know there are still things I need to work on, but I will get there one step at a time.

I also want to mention that I am really enjoying Joe’s goals. It is fun to see the check marks and to see where I stand for the week.

I have noticed that working to meet my goals have become more important to me and is starting to become a habit. My day does not seem complete and I feel like I can’t go to bed at night until I know I have completed my goals. I’m also thinking about my daily goals early in the day and trying to accomplish them early so when bedtime comes I don’t have to fight myself to complete them.

My goals are listed on my sidebar. This week I completed all my daily goals except I missed one day drinking all my water. Then with my one time goal of sorting through my girls clothes I did not complete the task. I worked on it 2 times this week. Therefore, I will continue with that goal for this next week too.

My new goal for this week is another one time goal. I have an in home child care business. It is now tax time, which means I have to go through all my receipts, expenses, and income…. I know I really should do this throughout the year, but I always seem to wait until tax time to do it. This year I created a system to sort my receipts by month and I have been following it. However, now I have to go through those receipts and record all my expenses. Therefore, this week my goal is to go through 1 month each day. My wonderful husband has agreed to help me and do 6 months of the year and I will do 6 months of the year. I am hoping to have this completed this week so then we can send in our taxes and be done. If you don’t see me this week around Blog World just know that I am working hard on my goals and really want to complete them. I will be back next week for sure and report how I did on the goals.

Please visit Lara The Lazy Organizer to see the other SMART Habit Saturday participants or to join yourself.

Until Later,
~Betty~

Ouch that hurt!

2007-02-08T00:45:00.000-05:00

I have been a Christian for awhile, I attend church every Sunday, I listen to Christian radio, I read Christian books, and I even visit Christian blogs, however this week while I was reading in Matthew, I was convicted.

Last week I made daily Bible reading as one of my goals. At first I didn’t know where to really start. Therefore, I ended up reading The Sermon on the Mount in Matthew. This was not new scripture to me, but I thought I would be encouraged and reminded of certain scriptures. I was not expecting to be convicted. You see I have been dealing with some temptations in my life and have been praying about them. Therefore, as I started reading the scriptures, God met with me and my heart, and in a lovingly way convicted me where I needed to be convicted. This passage also reminded me that when we face temptation that we need to resist and run from it. Therefore, if you see me running by, just know that I am running from temptation.

It doesn’t matter how long we have been Christians or the Christian things that we do, God knows our hearts and things that other people can’t see. God reminded me that He is not only interested in what I do; he is also interested in my heart and my attitude. After reading in the Bible this week I felt like God & I met below the surface of the “Christian” things and we met on the heart level. Please don’t misunderstand me. I believe that Church, Christian books, Christian music, Christian blogs, and Christian friends are blessings from God, have a special place in my heart, and God uses those things in my life. However, those things can not take the place that only God and His word can fill in our lives. God wants to connect with us deeply and teach us how to live for Him.

Please forgive me if what I’m trying to say and share isn’t coming out right. I guess all I’m trying to say is; it doesn’t matter how long we have been a Christian or all the right things that we do, God is still working on us. Just because we have been a Christian for awhile there are times when we still need to be corrected. God wants to draw us closer and closer to Him. He loves us no matter what. This is what I experienced this week in my Bible reading and I wanted to share it with you. I hope this all makes sense, if not Oh Well, just know I met with God this week and it was way overdue.

Until Later,
Betty

Chocolate

2007-02-07T17:26:00.000-05:00

I can relate! Can you?

SMART Habit Saturday #5

2007-02-05T10:40:00.000-05:00

It is SMART Habit Saturday time again. If you want to know more about Smart Habit Saturday please visit The Lazy Organizer here.

Week 1 My goal was to clean my kitchen sink nightly. This week with combine help of my husband I have completed this goal.

Week 2 My goal was to drink 64 oz (8 glasses of water) daily. This week I have done this everyday, but one day.

Week 3 My goal this week was to exercise everyday Monday – Friday. This was the hardest for me this week. I had several days that I just did not feel like it and did not want to do it. However, I did meet this goal and exercised everyday. I have started an exercise streak and didn’t want to break it, so I think that helped a lot.

Week 4 My goal this week was to read my Bible everyday. As I worked on this the Lord showed me things about my life, which I am hoping to post about later this week. I did miss one day this week.

Overall I think I did pretty good, but it was not always easy. I am finding that this does keep me accountable to do things I should be doing. Thank you Lara for creating SMART Habit Saturday. Now on to this week:

Since I started SMART Habit Saturday I have choose goals that I want to make a daily task. This week I want to continue working on these goals and form them into a habit. However, I have a one time job that needs to be done. Therefore, this week instead of creating a daily habit I want to work on a one time job that needs done. Currently, I need to go through my girls clothes. I have realized that they have too many clothes. I have some friends that pass on to me their daughter’s clothes when they grow out of them and we are running out of room. I know my girls have clothes in their closet that no longer fits them or they don’t like. I know I am overdue of going through them, but I can’t seem to find the time to do what I need to do. Because these SMART Habits Saturday goals seem to keep me accountable and I try hard to accomplish what I decide to work on I am going to do a one time goal and go through my girls clothes. Hopefully after this week I can get my bedroom back (I have most of the girl’s clothes in piles on my bedroom floor). I will report back next week as to how I did.

If you would like to be apart of SMART Habit Saturday, please visit Lara here.

Until Later
~Betty~

Little Things Mean the Most

2007-01-30T10:23:00.000-05:00

It really is the little things that mean the most to your heart.

A few months ago I received an email from a friend thanking me for buying her a drink at church during a children’s worship team practice. I really didn’t think anything of it. She didn’t have any cash on her & I had extra so I bought her a drink. In her email she was explaining how much it meant to her and what a blessing it was that I would buy her a drink and how she has a hard time expressing in person how she felt. I also understood that my friend had some other difficult issues going on and I was glad to be able to show love & kindness by a simple little drink. I honestly did feel blessed that it meant so much to her.

Last night at Upward practice I was standing in the hallway with a friend looking for a phone number that I needed. As we were standing there her husband walked by and was getting ready to buy both of them a soda (of course I call it a pop, being from the mid west). As he was walking to the “pop” machine he called back and asked if I wanted a soda. I can not express how that made me feel. It would have been very acceptable for him not to offer to buy me a drink. Under no circumstances would I have expected him to buy me a pop, because he was buying himself and his wife a soda. Of course, I declined the offer. The truth is I really wanted a pop last night, but I am only allowing myself to have one on the weekends. The offer itself was such a blessing to me and made me feel the connection of friendship to this couple. Because of previous get together his couple is going from being church acquaintances to friends in our lives and I feel blessed to know them. When I got home and shared with John, my husband, about the offer he felt the same blessing that I did.

It really is the simple things that cost so little that mean so much to friendships. We never know what small gesture of kindness will do to someone else’s heart. So I just want to ask anyone who is reading this right now to maybe take $1 and spend it on someone outside of your family. It may only cost you $1, but it might be worth $100 of encouragement to someone else.

Until Later,
Betty

SMART Habit Saturday

2007-01-27T00:25:00.000-05:00

Well it's that time again. It's SMART Habit Saturday. This is where we pick a new habit or a goal you want to form into a habit and you work on it all week and then report on your blog how you did. If you are not participating it is not too late to join. Just go to Lara's site and join in with the group. There is a group that will support, encourage, and keep you accountable to meet your goals. It's great so just go here.

This past week my new habit was to do some type of exercise everyday this week. I must tell you that this was HARD! I did do some type of exercise everyday, but there were several days that I did not want to do any type of exercise. However, knowing that I had to report about it here and because I wanted a check mark and point at Joe's Goals I exercised even when I didn't feel like it. :)

As for the other weeks goals - I am still working on them to develop into a habit.

Week # 1 - Clean kitchen sink before going to bed. I did do this all, but one day this week.

Week # 2 - Drink 64 oz water everyday - I missed one day this week ( because I forgot to take my water to church with me) The fact that I put it off most of the day has nothing to do with it. lol :)

Week # 3 - Exercise everyday. As hard as this was I did exercise everyday this week.

My new habit for Week #4 is going to be to read my Bible everyday. I notice that I struggle with this from time to time. There are times when this is not a problem for me and I do my daily devotions. Then there are times when I can't seem to get into my devotions. I feel like God is laying this on my heart to make this a daily habit.

I am realizing that making these goals really is affecting my daily life and making a difference in me. I always struggle with self - discipline and being apart of this group is really helping me in more ways than just the goals I am listing. If you are not doing SMART Habit Saturday you really should give it a try. If you don't want to be apart you could just send your support and encourage those who are in the group. All you have to do is visit The Lazy Organizer.

Until Later,

Betty

Exercising Goals

2007-01-23T23:19:00.001-05:00

Well as I stated in my Smart Habit post I am trying to exercise everyday, thanks to a friend of mine who called and gave me the challenge to exercise everyday this week. I must say that it was the push that I really needed. I know that I need to exercise more, but in all honesty I did not want to start. Monday night I so bad did not want to walk, but I did. Afterward I felt great, because I said no to myself and showed some discipline and did what I needed to do. I really want to make some changes in my life & I believe this time I am actually going to accomplish what I know to do and really want to do.

One tool I will be using to accomplish these goals is by using the goal tracker I added to my blog to the right. Thanks to Becky & Lara for the suggestion to use Joe's Goals. This is really neat. You can set up as many goals as you want. You add check marks to the goals that you have accomplished for that day. I have added this to my sidebar in order to help me stay accountable. You are welcome to click on it and see how I am doing and to check it out to use yourself.

A couple of other sites are encouraging & helping me to stay focused and accountable to my weight loss goals and those are The Amazing Shrinking Mom and Motivation Moments. If you have not checked these out, let me encourage you to try them.

I hope everyone is having a good week.

Until Later,
Betty

S.M.A.R.T. Habit Saturday Update

2007-01-22T12:47:00.000-05:00

*** Updated at the end ***

Well I’m late again on posting my SMART Habit Saturday update. However, I did have most of it written on Friday. Then my husband switched out our computer that I had my post saved to, then went into a busy weekend and on & on & on… you understand right?

Well without more delay here is my update. This past week I made a goal to drink 8 glasses of water a day. I really thought this was going to be very hard since I don’t like water. It really surprised me that I have drank at least 8 glasses everyday this week. There even were days when I drank more than 8 glasses. I know I can’t believe it either. I had a big container that holds 64 oz. I filled up with ice every morning and kept it on my kitchen counter. As I went through my daily activities I would just go and take a drink. When we would had to go somewhere, Upward, Church, or the store I would take my container with me. Before I knew it the water would be gone. When I would notice that not much of the water was gone I would purposely drink more so I would reach my goal. It worked!!!!

I also continued on cleaning my kitchen sink every night. Because I knew I would have to report on that I kept the sink clean. There were a few nights that hubby took care of the dishes and I’m counting that too – I did over see the job :) lol . Because I have set this goal and want my sink clean when I go to bed I notice I will do as much as I can earlier in the day to help me accomplish my goal. It is working!

I do have to admit that I did not keep up with the sink so much this weekend, but I have caught up and starting again.

For this next week I am going to just keep working on these two habits, because I want to make these a lifetime habit. I need all the help I can get, especially with the water.

I will start a new Habit next week. Thanks Lara for hosting SMART Habit Saturday. Please visit Lara to join in on SMART Habit Saturday or just visit others who are participating.

***Update *** A friend of mine just called me and challenaged me to do some kind of exercise everyday this week. She did not even know about what I am trying to accomplish through SMART Habit Saturdays. Therefore I am going to go ahead and add a new goal this week - exercising at least once a day. I guess I knew I should have added this goal, but I was chicken that I wouldn't accomplish it. But I'm going to take the challenage and go for it. We will see what happens.

Until Later,
Betty

New Colors

2007-01-20T05:46:00.000-05:00

So what do you think of the new colors on my blog? I like the colors blue and maroon and trying to find a way to use them together. I also changed some of my sidebar elements. I want to use my sidebar to keep track of my goals. I think I am going to order a blog design from bluebird designs, but there is a 6-8 week waiting period. So until then I am going to try this or I might change it again.

Let me know what you think.

Until Later,
~Betty~

Friday Feast

2007-01-19T09:30:00.000-05:00

Appetizer

Which television shows do you just refuse to miss?

House - I put the girls to bed early on Tuesdays and my hubby & I watch it together. Then I love 7th Heaven - I'm never home on Sunday nights when is on, we just got a DVR so now I can watch it when we get home.

Soup

Who did you last speak to on the telephone?

My Hubby

Salad

How many pillows do you keep on your bed?

Main Course

Name one addition to your computer (software, hardware, etc.) that you'd love to have.

Some kind of budget software, but I was just IMing my cousin yesterday who I have not seen for about 5 years and just started getting back in contact with each other and we were discussing getting a mircophone or web camera so we could actually talk to each other for free.

Dessert

What is your favorite foreign food?

Mexican

For more Friday Feasts you can visit here

Until Later,
~Betty~

Thankful

2007-01-18T22:41:00.000-05:00

I'm thankful for my husband. Tonight I just needed to unload somethings that were bothering me and he so patiently listened to me. I know he could not relate to most of my feelings and did not really understand, but he did listen to me. I know most men want to fix the problem, not just to listen, which is what we women want most of the time. After 11 years of marriage my husband is learning and has many moments when he will just listen to me. (Then he trys to fix the problem lol :) ). I am thankful that he TRYS to understand me and he PRETENDS to understand me even when he doesn't have a clue. We do have those moments when I want to say "I JUST WANTED YOU TO LISTEN TO ME," but tonight was not one of those times. He just listened to me!

After fighting with my kids all afternoon and feeling like a failure, I can go to bed being thankful for the husband that I have.

More importantly than my husband, I'm thankful for a heavenly father who offers unconditional love to this imperfect mother, women, and friend who is just "on the journey to victory!"

Until Later,
~Betty~

Prayer Request

2007-01-16T15:19:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure what to blog about today. I think my life has become boring, well maybe it has always been boring I'm just realizing it. lol I am still working on my organizational & weight loss goals. I am still working on a test blog to see about making some changes to this blog. I want to use this blog to list my goals and to keep me accountable to accomplish these goals. I thought I would have it ready for today, but because of other time commitments that came up the blog is not ready. However, it is coming. I know you all just can't wait to see it. lol.

As I have been talking to others my heart breaks with some of their situations that is happening. I want to share one situation and ask for your prayers for this family. A friend of mine, Lisa, is going through some tough times and I feel so helpless. She was admitted to the hospital last night after being at the ER on Saturday night with kidney stones. She is in so much pain and they can't seem to control it with medicine so she is having surgey this afternoon (as I type). They have 3 children whom she homeschools from the ages 7 - 13 years old. She will be in the hospital for the next several days. A mutual friend of ours, Alice, is taking care of her girls right now and will take them to the hospital later to visit her. Another mutual friend has been at the hospital the whole day to support her and her husband. Because of my child care business and my schedule I don't feel like there is much I can do to help. I have been praying for this family and want them to feel loved and supported and I'm glad to see people who are able to step up and be there are doing it.

Please be praying for this family. They have a lot of issues going on in their lives (that I won't be blogging about here). I sure would appericate your prayers.

Until Later,
Betty

SMART Habit Saturday Update

2007-01-13T00:40:00.000-05:00

I have completed my first week of SMART Habit Saturday hosted by Lara, The Lazy Organizer. Knowing I would have to give an account of how I did really seemed to help and motivate me to stick to my goal. My goal this week was to clean my sink every night and go to bed with no dirty dishes in the sink. Because I wanted to make a good impression and look good for the first week and try to fool, I mean impress people who really don’t know me I cleaned my sink every night before I went to bed this week. So now make me feel good and tell me you’re impressed. If you are not impressed you can still tell me you are, I won’t mind – really! lol :). (Side note I’m trying to add some humor to my posts, which does not come naturally to me. How am I doing?)

Okay Okay, back to my new SMART Habit. In all seriousness, which is more me, there were several nights this week that I really wanted to forget about my sink and just go to bed. I even gave up some blogging time to make sure my sink was clean – now you should really be impressed! I did learn that because I knew I wanted to succeed this week and have a good report that I was able to make my goal happen even when I didn’t FEEL like it. One change I noticed is that I planned ahead, which is not normal for me. When I knew we were going to have a late night, I tried to get the dishes done before we left or as many as I could. There were some nights that I just knew I wasn’t going to get them done before we left. On those nights as soon as we came home instead of sitting down and watching TV or going to blogging I finished the dishes right away and what a difference it made. I also realized that with the dishes done at night the next day went a lot better, because I didn’t have the dreaded thought of the dishes to do running through my head.

I am going to continue working on this habit this week, but also I’m going to add a new one to work on. My two goals this year is to loose weight and to get organize. Because I want to make changes for a lifetime I am trying to accomplish this at a slow pace. Therefore, I am thankful that Lara had the inspiration, desire, and idea to start this SMART Habit Saturday. Last week I worked on an organizational task, this week I am going to work on a healthy habit. As I am going to dread this, my new goal will be to drink 8 glasses of water everyday. As I just reread that thought, that’s not a real good attitude to have in order to accomplish this goal. But can you tell this will be a tough one for me. In the past I have been able to drink water when I really set my mind to it, but it just doesn’t last very long. In order to get ready for this new goal I have started to drink more water this week. I realize there are many benefits to drinking water and I do feel better about myself when I drink more, therefore, I just need to make the total commitment and make it a habit – my goal for this week and the next three. My plan is to daily fill a large cup that holds 8 cups of water and drink from it as I go through my day. I am not going to allow myself to drink anything else until the water is gone. We will see how it goes and I will let you know next week. If you have any suggestions about drinking water let me know.

If you are not participating in SMART Habit Saturday and would like to please visit Lara. I am looking forward to seeing how everyone else did.

Until Later
~Betty~

Organized Junk Drawer

2007-01-09T23:22:00.000-05:00

Well I took Laura at Organize Junkie's advise. I cleaned out my two kitchen Junk Drawers and organized them. I was suprise it did not take me a long period of time. I even sat boundaries for the stuff and used small containers. "Hoooly Toleeeedo, who organizes a junk drawer?" was my husband's remark when he opened the drawer looking for a battery. He can say what he wants, but he found the batteries in no time flat. The drawers look wonderful, if I did not know better I would think I was an organized person. Seceretly, I have been opening the drawers just to look at the organization. lol. It makes me feel like I am looking in someone else's drawers. lol.

Until Later,
~Betty~

SMART Habit Saturday

2007-01-08T14:17:00.000-05:00

Setting goals, making plans, and making changes to be a better person is very common at this time of the year. I have been thinking about things I want to change and what I want to do differently. I guess the new year brings that out in all of us. It is a NEW Year and it is a chance to start over and to regroup in our lives. I have several goals I have set for this year and things I want to change. Most of my goals are things that I have already been working on, such as organization and weightloss. I really want to accompish my goals and not just set them beacuse it is January of a new year. My plan is to use this blog to help me stay accountable and to accomplish my goals. Therefore, I am working on some changes to this blog. Stay posted for the changes.

Along with the changes I am joining SMART Habit Saturday with Lara @ The Lazy Organizer. I know it said Saturday and this post is late, but it is to good of an idea for me to skip over because I was late. SMART stands for: Saving Money, Associations, Resources and Time. You can visit Lara here for more indepth details of each catagory. Lara is encouraging us to weekly pick one daily habit we want to develop and then post about it. Then we need to link back to her site and visit & encourage others who are also participating. You are welcome to join in if you want.

As I stated my goals this year relate to organization and weightloss so I have had a hard time which one habit to pick. My first step in weightloss would be to drink more water, however I chose to pick organization. I have been reading flylady and like the idea to getting organized by developing routines. Therefore, I want to start implementing some of her ideas. My SMART Habit will be, the 1st step in her program, to keep my kitchen sink shinning & clean. Every night before I go to bed I want to make sure my sink is empty of dishes and the kitchen is clean. I will let you know how I do this week on Saturday (hopefully - Maybe Sunday or Monday - but I will let you know). I'm also going to work on drinking more water, but will consentrate on keeping a clean sink.

Until Later,
~Betty~

Weekend Reflections

2007-01-06T22:02:00.000-05:00

Stepped back into reality this week. We are back into the schedule of school, child care hours, and John is back at work. However, the break has been very good. I can sense just in my attitude and mood that I feel refreshed and renewed and ready to get back into my normal life.

Before the holidays I was not overly anxious to fill the 2 openings I had in my child care business. I have considered stop doing child care and finding a job outside the home. However, I can't find a job without applying for one(ha ha) and we need the income so I am continue doing child care and trying to fill my openings (at least for now). There is still a strong nudge in me wanting to stay at home. After having a break I feel uplifted and renewed about my child care business. Therefore, I put a sign out advertising about in home child care and have had several calls about it. This week I have been able to fill one of my openings and had a promising interview for the other. It looks like I might have the last opening filled by next week. I feel good about this right now and believe this is what God wants me to do right now. I was nervous about filling the spots, but I have been praying that God would send the right families that would be a good fit for both them and myself. It has been neat to hear about how God is using the timing of me putting up my sign at a time when those looking for child care need it the most. It has been a reinsurance of God saying He wants me to continue child care for right now.

First day of Upward Baskestball & Cheerleading was today. I posted about it here. I was nervous of how the Cheerleading would go since I'm the adult couch for Jody's squad. It has been awhile since I have been in a leadership role outside of my home & I feel a little rusty. Overall it went good. There are a few things that I wanted to try and will do differently next week. We have spilt the squad into two teams and each one cheers for a seperate game with the option if any of the girls want to cheer to both games they can. I planned on letting Jody cheer for both games, but realized today that is too much for her at one time. The first game she did great. She was cheering, jumping, yelling, and having a good time. She was awarded the Gold star for best spirit. During the second game she was too tired to cheer. Therefore, next week I will not encourage her to cheer for both games. Bethany played basketball and she loved it. She made three baskets for her team. The couch was telling me that Bethany was putting forth a lot of effort and really trying to learn the game. It was a good day!

Also this week I have been working on my different organizational projects and have had a chance to spend time with John and some other friends. It has been a good week.

I like doing these weekend reflections that my blogging friend Judi has created. I hope you enjoy reading these every week. It is a chance for me to record what happened this week and to concentrate on the good things that happen in my life.

Untill Later,

Betty

Upward Sports

2007-01-03T23:16:00.000-05:00

My children are not in a lot of activities such as sports, dance, music lessons, and ect. We basically have them involved in church activities - Caravan(Christian Scouting), Bible Quizzing, and Praise team - stick ministry & puppets. My reasons for not doing the other activities are not because I have anything against them, I just choose those things that will enhance the values I am trying to teach my children and those things that fit into my budget. This is one reason why I am so thankful that our church (and many others) have chosen to do Upward Sports. Last year was our first year participating in any Upward Sprots and we are doing it again this year. Upward Cheerleading & Basketball have started at our church this week.

Last year Bethany did cheerleading, but this year she is playing basketball. She has had her 1st practice and has her 1st game on Saturday. She seems to like her coach and is excited to play.

Jody has signed up for cheerleading and looks so cute in her uniform. I'm not sure how well she will know the cheers, but she has the cuteness down.

I am the adult coach for Jody's cheerleading squad. There are 3 other teens that will teach the girls the cheers and I will handle the devotions, dealing with the parents, behavior of the cheerleaders, and the administration stuff of the squad. I'm looking forward to it - a little nervous, but expecting it all to go well and to have fun with it.

John is doing the announcing and running the sound for all the games. He will have a blast with it.

This all means that our Saturday's from now until March will be full & busy. However, I am at peace about giving up my Monday's and Saturday's for practices and games and am looking forward to this Upward season.

Untill Later,
~Betty~

Weekend Reflection

2006-12-30T12:25:00.000-05:00

This week has been good for us. John & I both had the the week off and we have not done any major traveling. It has been good to just be at home.

I have had some time for a relaxing bubble bath while the rest of my family slept in.

Some friends of mine from Ohio have been here visiting.

I have had some extra prayer & devotion time. I had a chance to really search my heart and pray for a friend that is really going through some rough times. I was also able to catch up on my Giving Christ First Place Bible Study that my friend Alice is also doing and my blogging friend Cheri recommended.

We have been able to do some fun family activites along with relaxing.

We had our "Dinner for 8" last night. This is a program at our church where they put 4 couples in a group and they meet for dinner once a month for 4 months. It is a chance to get to know different people at church and help new people feel like they belong. We have been enjoying it.

I have been able to get some home projects done. John & I painted the girls bathroom. I finished my organizational challenaged hosted by Organized Junkie (that I started back in November), I got my lein closet organized, and I got the girls bathroom cabinet organized.

This has been a good week! I really don't want to go back to the real world. :(, but I know I have to.

Let me know how your week went.

For more weekend reflections visit Judi

Until Later,

~Betty~

Family Activities

2006-12-29T11:17:00.000-05:00

We had such a nice family day yesterday. I took my time getting up and ready then our family along with some friends went to Mayfield Dairy and to Magical Nights of Lights. At the end of the light tour there was an area that had carnaval rides and we let the kids ride and play around. It was such a blessing to see my girls have so much fun. It brought back memories of a kid going to our county fair and having a good time. It made me realize that I need to plan more activities like these to make memories with my kids.

As I posted here before I have been struggling with being a parent and my girl's behavior. As I have been praying about it and searching my heart I am reminded, okay convicted, that I need to continue being who God has created me to be and that includes being a mother. I need to take that role more serious and to get rid of my sefishness and my pride. That is not to say that I won't take my breaks when I need them and to make time for myself, but it's more of a heart issue the Lord is working on in me. My desire is to make a difference in my children's life and to teach them the Lords way and to help them to develop a strong meaningful walk with the Lord. I know I have an important role as a mother and I want to do the best job that I can.

Until Later
~Betty~

Christmas is Over

2006-12-27T09:07:00.000-05:00

Well Christmas is over, but I'm still on vacation. Christmas was nice and I received special blessings this year - being with friends (those close enough to be family), special time with my family, making a special meal, making special phone calls with Pat, Ruby, and Heather & the girls, nice gifts, and seeing the excitment of my girls. It was a good time for all.

Now that Christmas is over I have been working around the house cleaning up, organizing, and painting. John & I have painted the girls bathroom with a dolphin theme. They seem to like it. Once I get my pictures back on the computer after our computer crash I will try to remember to post the before and after pictures.

For being on vacation we sure do have a lot planned. John and I are going on a date, we as a family are going swimming, we are touring a dairy factory, going to see christmas lights, having friends over, the girls have an overnight party, and having dinner at another family's home. Friends of mine from Ohio are here visiting (not staying at my house) so we are doing things with them. It is good to go on vacation at home.

I'm being blessed right now. As I am writing this my husband is cleaning up the kitchen - which was my job to do. I am so blessed to have John in my life and I am very thankful.

Until Later,
~Betty~

Merry Christmas

2006-12-25T09:12:00.000-05:00

(SINGING)

WE WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS
WE WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS
WE WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS
AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I hope everyone is having a great day! I will enjoy hearing about it next week!
~Betty~

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Catch Up

2006-12-22T14:31:00.000-05:00

I have not left the blogging world. We have been having computer problems. John had to wipe clean our computer and we have to start over with it. I was able to save our pictures, but lost all my documents I had saved to the computer - my budget, my resume, John's resume, my child care handbook, and all the blog posts I had saved in Word. This should teach me to save my stuff on disc and not just to the computer.

I have been out shopping late at night two times this week. TuesdayI left my house at 10:30 pm after everyone was in bed. I returned at 1:00am. Then on Wednesday I went shopping after church with my friend Alice - that was fun. I did not return until 2:00am. It was different shopping late and with no kids. I actually enjoyed it and didn't dread it.

Thursday night we had friends over for dinner - they actually are more like my parents than friends - we exchanged gifts and it was a good time. It was a blessing and a special heart moment seeing my girls giving our friends their gifts and seeing our girls receive their gifts and playing with them.

Tonight we have stick ministry practice at church. Then tomorrow we have a party to attend. We will go to church on Christmas Eve and then just have some family time at home. On Christmas we will have our family Christmas and then have been invited over to some friends house and will spend the remainder of the day with them. I am looking forward to that.

This should catch up my week. I wish everyone a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Until Later,
Betty

Friday's Feast

2006-12-15T10:46:00.000-05:00

This is my first Friday's Feast. I thought I would give it a try. I hope you enjoy.

Appetizer: What was your very first job with a paycheck?

I can’t remember how old I was. I must have been late elementary school, but I had a paper route. I would deliver the local newspaper to my neighborhood and then would have to go and collect money every Friday. The newspaper company would send a bill to me and whatever I collected over that amount was mine.

My later years in high school I worked at Burger King.

Soup: Did you ever lose something really important to you?

I’m sure I have, but nothing comes to mind right now.

Salad: What is the best Christmas present you ever received?

It would have to be Jesus’ birth. He is the best gift to the world. It brings me great comfort to know that no matter what happens in my life I have the love of Christ and that gets me through everything.

Main Course: Tell about a favorite "hang out" place for you and your friends when you were in high school.

I don’t remember a specific “hang out” place. I remember getting together with my friends at church activities and at each other’s houses. I do remember going to the football games on Friday nights and always having a good time. I also remember being in drama club and after our Friday night performance all the cast would go to the local Pizza Hut. We sure did take over the restaurant.

Dessert: Name something that always brings a smile to your face.

I love it when someone tells me that I have encouraged them or have done something to brighten their day.

Please visit here in order to see more Friday Feasts.

Thursday 13

2006-12-14T10:16:00.000-05:00

THURSDAY 13

I have really been trying to keep my house clean and organized. I have found it just doesn't come naturally to me. I have really been working on it and learning what I can - thanks Laura at org junkie. However, I feel so much better when I come into my home (or certain rooms) when it is cleaned and organized. I am consistantly telling my husband "I will get this house organized, if it's one of the last things I do." Therefore for Thusday 13 I have listed 13 Things in my house that I need to Organize in no particular order. This will be my project goal list and I will update as I get things done.

1. Under the bathroom sinks

2. Hall closet

3. Coat closet

4. My bedroom closet

5. My girls bedroom closet

6. Filing cabinet

7. CD’s

8. Purse

9. Van

10. My pictures

11. My bedroom dresser

12. The girls bedroom dresser

13. Kitchen cabinets

As you can tell I have my work cut out for me. I will be visiting Laura the Organize Junkie and Lara the Lazy Organizer quite a bit for ideas.

I am off to finish (start) my projects.

Until Later,
Betty

I QUIT!

2006-12-12T15:47:00.000-05:00

I QUIT! I quit! I no longer want to be a mother.

Where do I turn in my resignation?

Why is the Lord not listening to me?

What do you mean this job last forever?

Was that apart of my agreement?

What do you mean a mother’s love never changes? Are you sure?

Why do I have to be so mean?

Why do the attitudes start so early anymore? I wasn’t expecting them until the teen years.

Why do other parents seem to have it all together?

Why do other people’s children seem to listen to their mom?

Why do other moms seem to have this great love for their children that I seem to be missing right now?

What do you mean I should not be comparing myself to others?

Why do I seem to be lacking patience right now?

Why are my children annoying me so much right now?

Is this a phase? Will it pass soon?

Is this a test? Am I failing at it? (I sure do feel like I am).

Are my girls learning God’s ways?

Are they learning respect and just not showing it to me?

Do they know they are loved?

Do they know that love is a choice and not a feeling? Do I know that and am I displaying that?

Are they learning that family can be the greatest blessing we could ask for?

Do they know that this home is a haven from the world?

Do they know that love is not conditional? (Which I did not experience as a child).

Do they know that God has a purpose and a plan for their lives?

Do they know that having a relationship with Jesus Christ is the most important decision they could make?

Do they know that having Jesus in their lives will get them through anything this world throws at them? It will even get you through the feelings of not being a good mother and the fears that you are making the same mistakes that your own mother made.

Do they know that God’s love is comforting at times when this mother feels like giving up?

Do they know that God will give me the strength when I feel like I can’t go on?

Do they know that I trust in Him and am relying on Him to get me through this?

Do they know that mommies don’t have to be perfect to be a good mom?

If I resign who will teach my children these lessons?

Okay! Okay! Okay!

I guess I’m back on the job! I think I will just ask for some time off and then be ready to go again.

Until Later,
~Betty~

Weekend Reflections

2006-12-11T09:42:00.000-05:00

This past weekend was so busy I forgot to do my weekend refections, therefore I am going to post today about the good things that happened last week

John & I were able to have a date night.

As a family we drove around to look at Christmas lights.

We decorated our home for Christmas

John & I have been helping out with our Christmas Celebration at church and it is now over. It all went well.

Because we live so far from our church and have different activities that go on @ church on Sundays we usually just stay at church all day on Sundays. Yesterday was no different. I had a good time just hanging out with our friends as we were celerbrating one of the kid's birthday. I was able to talk and catch up with Faye, who is like a mom to me, and I had a special moment with my friend Alice sharing my heart and some concerns of mine.

I am also thankful for my relationship with Jesus and the time I have spent with him this week.

If you would like to see more Weekend Reflections or to post your own please visit my blogging friend Judi at mommy to two

Until Later,

Betty

Christmas Decorating

2006-12-06T13:34:00.000-05:00

We put up our Christmas decorations on Monday & Tuesday nights. It was such a nice & peaceful time for our family. I don’t always enjoy putting up the decorations and I feel like I do it just because of the kids. I usually feel time pressed and then have to make sure everything is done and then cleaned up and put away. Not this year.

We had planned to put the tree up on Saturday, but we had a dress rehearsal at our church and when we got home John & I were just not in the mood to put up the Christmas tree. Instead of pressuring ourselves and trying to live up to other’s expectations (which I post about here) we decided to wait. One of our family traditions is each year we each get to pick out a new ornament for the tree. Therefore, we decided that we would go pick out ornaments on Saturday and then on Monday we would put the tree up. On Monday evening John fixed his favorite hot chocolate for all of us and we put the tree up while listening to Christmas music. We did not get all of our decorations done on Monday before it was bedtime. I started thinking about other’s expectations again and this post and decided that there was not a reason why we couldn’t wait and finish our decorating on Tuesday night and that’s what we did. We had a nice family dinner, which John helped prepare and a relaxing evening. We each put our own ornaments on the tree from years past and it was nice remembering certain things that have happened in our lives. We decorated the fireplace, put garland up on the doorways, and decorated the girl’s bathroom, which is more than what I have done in years past. We also had time to sit and look at the lights with music playing and just to enjoy each other. It was a nice and peaceful time and today I have enjoyed having the house decorated for Christmas.

Christmas time is usually kind of sad, emotional, and lonely for me (which I have been feeling blah this week). However, I can rest in the assurance that I have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and I can celebrate that He came to this world and am thankful for His love and what He does in my life everyday. This year, just like everyday, I will celebrate Jesus, my family, and enjoy the fun things you can do this time of the year in our community. I am looking forward to seeing some Christmas dramas, Christmas lights, and have relaxing evenings at home enjoying my family.

I hope you each find something special about Christmas this year and enjoy the blessings God gives us no matter what else is going on in our lives, that is my plan.

Until Later,
~Betty~

Blessed & Being a Blessing

2006-12-01T00:01:00.000-05:00

Several months ago we were having a lot of car problems and had some unexpected expenses that came up. A good friend of ours was working on our car and bought the parts that he needed to fix it. The agreement was when everything was said and done they would give us a final cost and we would make it right. At the time our finances were so tight and other unexpected expenses came up that I just couldn’t squeeze out the money in our budget for the car repairs. I shared our circumstances with our friends and let them in on what was going on. This is a couple who understands what it like is to live life and are were we are too. At this particular time God was blessing them financially and their response to me was right now we don’t need the money so pay it back when you can afford it. As I was praying about this and confiding with my friend, I prayed that when we were able to pay this back it would be at a time when this couple would need the money and it would be a blessing to them as they were blessing us. God answered that prayer this week. This couple graciously offered to fix the brakes on our van while we were gone on vacation last week. When we got back I was able to give them a check for the cost of the brakes and what we owed them from several months back. I found out it was a time for them that they needed the extra money to cover certain expenses and at this time we had the money to pay them.

God is so good how He just works those things out. I love knowing we can trust Him to take care of things we don’t know are going on. Of course I say this after the fact. It’s not so easy trusting Him before we see what He is doing. I am still learning on this journey and it does strengthen my faith to see God working. I am feeling blessed and loved today.

Until Later,
~Betty~

God's Expectations

2006-11-29T15:36:00.000-05:00

When we first moved to Georgia a lot things did not happen the way I expected them to, which caused a lot of hurt and disappointments on my part. During our first year in GA it took John longer to find a job than what we expected and that was one of the hardest years of our married life. I remember times of crying & crying & crying on my way to work and then once I got there putting on a mask as if nothing was wrong. Then our 2nd year came and we were able to become 1st time home owners, what a blessing! John now has a full time job that he likes and I have been able to restart my in home day care business. For the most part things have been good, not always great, but good. During this second year was when God started working on a heart issue of mine. We all have issues in our lives that God does not always make aware to us that we need to deal with or change until He is ready to walk us through them. Well, this was one of those. I have always been one that wants to grow in the Lord and be what He wants me to be. However, I don’t always realize that sometimes growing pains hurt and I mean deeply hurt.

Sarah at in the Midst of It posted about her daily schedule and just being honest about how normal life is and not having to be perfect to be a good mom, good Christian, and to be loved (ok so the being perfect part is my interpretation of what she wrote not necessarily what she said). This post reminded me that it is okay to be human and I don’t have to live up to certain expectations that I put on myself. This past year God has been teaching me that He is the perfect and wholly One and I only need to live up to His expectations and not the expectations of others. I have always been a people pleaser and worry about what others think or might say.

There have been certain people in my life that I have always tried to please no matter what. There have been certain expectations that I have tried to live up to and tried to be a certain type of person. In a lot of ways I don’t know who this person or people are that I have been trying to impress, live up to, and meet their expectations, but it sure has affected my life. God has been teaching me that He is the only one that I should be so concerned about what He thinks of me and not other people. I have said over and over again that you can’t please everyone and it only matters what God thinks. However, to live it and not just say it is another story. It has been very hurtful to let go of those expectations and live those words. I would not believe that to be true if I did not experience this past year.

I have had to let go of certain expectations and come to some realizations and it has been a painful part of this journey to be who God wants me to be.

Some new thoughts I have learned this past year are:
· I do not have to be just like anyone else
· I do not have to be organized
· I do not have to have a spotless house
· It is okay to watch some TV and to let my children watch some TV
· It is Okay to spend money on things that I like and want to have
· It is okay to be Betty
· I don’t have to be the most outgoing person for God to use for His purpose
· I don’t always have to know what to say in every situation

Some of these things I am still learning and still putting into practice. I know there are other things too that I’m not remember right now. In a lot of ways I am at the beginning of the journey of not worry about what others think, but I am confident that God is there with me and will walk me through every step of the way. There may still be more pain ahead of me, but I will walk on this journey with the Lord beside me and enjoy the blessings he gives me.

Thank you Sarah for reminding me that I am still loved, valued, and a good mom without having to be that “perfect mom” out there that gets up at 5:00am to run 5 miles in 25 min, have 2 separate devotional times, and to cook breakfast all before my kids wake up.

Until Later
~Betty~

A-Z of ME

2006-11-28T10:05:00.000-05:00

I was tagged by Judi to do this and this is my very first tagged!

A - Available/Single? Nope, married
B - Best Friend? My Hubby
C- Cake or Pie? cake
D - Drink Of Choice? Mt. Dew
E - Essential Item You Use Everyday? My toothbrush
F - Favorite Color? Blue
G - Gummy Bears Or Worms? Gummy Bears
H - Hometown? Cambridge, OH
I - Indulgence? Blogging
J - January Or February? January
K - Kids & Their Names? Bethany & Jody
L - Life Is Incomplete Without? My family
M - Marriage Date? June 10, 1995
N- Number Of Siblings? 0
O - Oranges Or Apples? Oranges
P - Phobias/Fears? losing my family, and snakes
Q - Favorite Quote? It all depends on the attitude
R - Reason to Smile – being loved
S - Season? Spring
T - Tag Five People? Jenn, Alice, Cheri, Amanda, and Laura
U - Unknown Fact About Me? ???????
V - Vegetable you don’t like? Beets
W - Worst Habit? Mt Dew
X - X-rays You’ve Had? neck
Y - Your Favorite Food? Pizza
Z - Zodiac Sign? Leo

This was fun I hope you will play along

~Betty~

Weekend Reflections

2006-11-25T22:55:00.000-05:00

We have had a good week visiting family and old friends. It was good to be back at our old church and visit with our friends. Here are the postive things that happened on our trip.

We had a safe trip to Ohio and no vehicle problems. We also made great time traveling and was able to watch the Ohio State game.

We were able to go out to eat with our Pastor and his wife, Kim. Pastor & I are big pizza fans, Kim is not and especially not for Sunday dinner. One time when we were still living in Lima a group of us were going to go to Pizza Hut after morning service. I invited Kim and she declined, because they had pizza over the weekend and Pizza Hut was not her idea of Sunday Dinner. After Kim declined Pastor walks by, not knowing Kim declined the offer, and asks were we are going and I replied Pizza Hut. Well, they ended up at Pizza Hut that day for Sunday Dinner and it has been an standing joke between Kim & I ever since. Now anytime we are in town we try to meet with Pastor and Kim and have dinner at Pizza Hut. Once again, because of schedules, we did it for Sunday dinner :).

I was able to visit with my best friend Pat. We have such a special relationship. We are not the same age. Our children are not the same ages. Our family lives and situations are not similar. Our marriages are not the same. However, we both are Christians and our heart's desire is to serve the Lord and to have all that He has for us. Therefore, our spirits connect and we can talk to each other just about anything - and we do! Pat is one person in my life that I can take my guard down and make myself very vulernable and let her know what is really going on in my heart. She does the same thing with me. When we were visiting together our husbands were joking with each other about when we get on the phone together they know their time with us in the evening is over and they lovingly say "good night see, you in the morning". :) What a blessing they are to be so patient with us. We sure do appericate it and my life is blessed by it.

It was so good to spend time with my sister-in-law, my brother-in-law, and my neices. We all had lunch together and then the ladies went out shopping. We also enjoyed playing cards together, which we don't do very often.

On Thanksgiving Day we all got together and had a good meal and a good time together :). There was very little frustrations with each other, which is always a good thing. For the most part everyone acted like adults and enjoyed themselves. Even the kids did not get into any arguments. Now that I think about it - Am I sure I was with the right family? lol :). It was a good day!

On Friday we did do a little shopping and was able to go eat at Texas Roadhouse, where John's brother, Josh is a manager. We had a good time visiting with him too. We were able to see Josh every day while we were at John's mom and it was good. My girls enjoyed spending time with him too.

It was good just to spend time at John's mom's house and be with her with no time pressures. The girls enjoyed being with grandma and asking her all kinds of questions. It was very comfortable and relaxing.

We had time to just relax and be causual. It was very nice. I also had time to reflect on how John & I have changed over the past 2 1/2 years while living in GA. There has been some hard times and hurtful moments, but I can see how God has used those times to help us grow in our walk with Him and for that I am grateful. I can see areas in my life that I am stronger now than I was 2 years ago. I am very thankful for my life, my family, and my relationship with Jesus Christ. He is my stronghold in life and am in love with Him!

If you would like to post a weekend reflection or to visit more go over and visit Judi, who I am also very thankful for. She is GREAT!

Until Later,
Betty

3:00 am Wake Up Call

2006-11-25T15:47:00.000-05:00

When planning to leave home at 5:00am for a ten hour road trip, I try to get to bed early and get a good night sleep. Just like any good plan, I was behind schedule and did not get to bed as early as I wanted. However that should be okay since my husband would be driving most of the trip and I could be sleeping in the van. John went to bed before I did and all was well. Then 3:00am came. We noticed Jody, my 5 yr old, was in bed with us and just as John was about to tell her to go back to her own bed, she looked right at John and threw up all over our bed. So at 3 am John is doing laundry and I am scrubbing the floor where my daughter left a trail to the bathroom. (I tried to clean all the spots, but it was 3 am, therefore, not sure what it will look like when I get back home.)

We then went and slept in the living room and tried to get another hour of sleep in before we left for our trip. At this point I was not sure how the travel would go and how sick Jody really was. Well Jody slept until we left and then in the van (we let the girls travel in their pj's). She was not running a fever or did not have any more stomach problems the whole trip. We did not have another problem with her. lol :).

John & I just laugh at the situation and know it just goes to prove that Jody does have a mind of her own and will let everyone know. We keep saying Jody just did not want to go back to her room and was going to tell John before he could tell her differently. Boy, do we have our hands full. We just continue to laugh on this journey of being parents.

We ended up leaving the house 30 mins later than what we wanted, but still got to my mother - in - law's in time to watch the big game between OH & MI (GO BUCKS)!

We had a good week and I will post more about our vacation as the week goes on. We will be back home tomorrow.

Until Later,
Betty

Thursday 13

2006-11-16T12:12:00.000-05:00

Here are 13 reasons why I am ready and excited to make our visit to Ohio!

John's family who I love is there and we all get to visit together.
I get to go shopping with my sister-in-law, my nieces, and my daughters. Instead of sending birthday gifts or money through the mail for the girls we all go shopping together when we are in town for Thanksgiving. My nieces get to pick out a birthday gift that I buy, then my girls pick out their birthday gifts and my sister-in-law buys theirs. This year we get to have lunch togeter too. While the women are doing this John and his brother go bowling and play pool.
My girls will have a chance to visit with their grandmother and I will too. It is usually such a relaxing time to just be at her house and chat and catch up on things.
We will get to visit with John's youngest brother and hopefully go to the resturant that he works at and enjoy the wonderful rolls.
I will get to visit with my friend Pat. Pat & I have a unique relationship. We are so different in so many ways, but when our hearts connect we make ourselves vulnerable and encourage each other in our spiritual journey.
We will get to go to our old church and see people that we love and miss.
We (hopefully) get to have lunch at Pizza Hut with our old Pastor & his wife Kim.
We are going out for Breakfast with John's best friend who lives in Wisconsin
We will go to my hometown of Cambridge and will get together with 2 of my cousin's who I have not seen for awhile
I will get to go to the church that I grew up in and see my old pastor and his wife.
We will have a chance to get away from our current jobs
I won't be responsible for any other children, but my own
I get to travel in our new van with just my family and spend time together talking and sharing our hearts.

We will leave early Saturday morning and won't get back until the following Sunday. I don't know if I will be able to post while I'm gone or not, but will try. I will at least try to visit other blogs and leave some comments.

Until Later,

~Betty~

Not Loosing Weight

2006-11-14T13:42:00.000-05:00

Do you ever have those times when you know there are things in your life you know you need to work on and do differently, but you just don't seem to do them and you don't seem to be making any changes? I'm there right now!

I have been wanting to loose weight. I have checked out many different diet plans. I have researched and read examples of what others are doing and how things are working for them. I have made committments to myself that I will make it work. I have set realistic goals for myself. I know the health risks for not loosing weight. I don't want to diet, I want to make it a life style change. I have all this head knowledge of how to do it, I just can't seem to do it. Oh, I seem to do it for awhile and trying to be positive and saying this time is going to be different, but my behavior doesn't seem to change. It's like what Paul says in the Bible "I do what I do not want to do." I have the desire to want to change, it's just putting that into action that I'm struggling with.

I'm a little concern with the holidays coming. We are leaving this weekend to go to Ohio for the entire next week and I know my eating patterns with be way off schedule and different than what it is now. Therefore I'm feeling a little blah about it.

A few months ago I started reading Mel at The Amazing Shrinking Mom and have been very impressed reading her story and how she is loosing weight. It has encouraged me many times. I set a goal to loose a certain number of pounds by Thanksgiving and I am not even close to the goal. So I am having a discouraging moment right now.

I am still learning about nutrition, calories, protion size, healthy eating, and exersicing. I still want to loose weight and I will find something that works for me. I am just having a down time with this issue right now.

I'm hoping that just being able to express this on my blog will help me to feel better about the issue and will help me to more on and continue on my weightloss journey. Maybe I will make myself real vulnerable here and put a link on here to keep track of my progress. I will think about that and see how I can do that.

If anyone has been there or are currently feeling the same way, I'm always open for encouragement, suggestions, and ideas. Thanks!

Until Later,
Betty

Menu Plan Monday

2006-11-13T09:50:00.000-05:00

It is that time again. Laura hosts Menu Plan Monday. This is the time when we plan our family's menu to help our weeks fo better. Over the past couple of months since I have been doing this it has been such a benifit to me in more than one way. I don't always stick to everything that I have panned and I do make some changes as I go along, but I'm still better off when I have a plan. So here is my plan for the week:

Monday

Lunch: Tacos

Snack:Chocolate Chip Cookies

Dinner: Homemade Pizza

Tuesday

Lunch: Philly Steaks

Snack: Pudding/ Jello

Dinner: Chicken Tosadas

Wednesday

Lunch: Hot Dogs

Snack: Corn Muffin

Dinner: Beef Stroganoff

Thursday

Lunch: Hamburgers

Snack: Garlic Rolls

Dinner: Fried Chicken (Hubby is cooking)

Friday

Lunch: Chicken Nuggets

Snack: Popcorn

Dinner: Roast

Saturday morning we leave for Ohio to visit family & friends for the next week and for Thanksgiving. I am so ready for our vacation and some time off.

To see more menus visit Laura at I'm an Organizing Junkie.

Until Later,

Betty

Weekend Reflections

2006-11-11T23:42:00.000-05:00

Well it is time for Weekend Reflections. This is where each weekend I join my blogging friend Judi and I post at least three postive things that have happen in my life this week or three things that I am thankful for this week. Depending on how rough the week is sometimes this is hard. However, it always helps to think about the positive rather than the negative and that is why we do weekend reflections. So here are some positive things that happen on my journey in life this week:

I was able to spend some alone time at home while John took the girls for basketball & cheerleading evaluations
John & I both went to church on Wednesday night and on the drive home got to talk and make plans for our trip to Ohio next weekend
I have friends and blogging friends ( Cheri & Judi) that I have been able to share about the possiblity of not continuing doing Child Care in my home and getting their prayer support
I have been able to get to know Judi from Mommy to Two a little better through email
I have had a special time with the Lord this week
We had a good time going out for pizza on Friday with some people from church that we didn't know very well
My friends Alice & Sam came over on Saturday. Alice & I worked on making some Christmas gifts. I have never felt so comfortable about having people over to my house as I did tonight. I did not get stressed about my house, I just wanted to enjoy our time together and we did. We were able to share some of our same concerns and issues the Lord is working on with us.

Well this was my week. If you would like to view more weekend relfections or to post your own visit Judi at Mommy to Two.

Until Later,

Betty