Simple Woman's Daybook

Simple Woman's Daybook

FOR TODAY Saturday, August 29

Outside my window... It's a nice Saturday morning and it is quiet. We live in a lovely and quiet neighborhood! The only thing I hear is a dog barking.

I am thinking...about the future. Thinking about finances and projects to do on the house. Praying about if/when to start expanding our family. Jeff graduates in May. Wondering what life will be like without him doing homework all the time! Im' sure that free time will be filled up though pretty quickly.

I am thankful for...a God that has no boundaries on love. I often feel like "i have let him down." But he reminds me that I don't hold him up in the first place. He holds me up!

From the learning rooms...I have a good class this year. Now it's only been one week and they can always turn on me! But so far so good. We had an AWESOME first week. Probably the best first week of school I have had.

From the kitchen...been cooking quick easy stuff this past week cause I have been too tired to much more than that at the end of a school day.

I am wearing...red gym shorts and a gray t-shirt

I am creating...NOTHING! But eventually (when we get tax return money) I will be creating a nice backyard. It will include a deck, a tree house for Colin, and a hammock between 2 trees and hopefully my vegetable garden!

I am going...to a youth conference in Tatum today with a few of our youth and to hear Jeff, Tim, and Jenni lead music!

I am reading...nothing right now. Haven't really read anything this week but lesson plans!

I am hoping...it gets easier to get up in the mornings and go to sleep at night! Not quite in that routine yet.

I am hearing...Colin munch on his breakfast cereal.

Around the house...I changed mopping chemicals. We have very slick tile floors in the bathroom, kitchen, mudroom and laundry room. The old stuff I was using was leaving a weird white film. I just switched to Lysol mopping stuff and it looks a LOT better. They don't "shine" like I want them to, but they don't leave a film or streaks!

One of my favorite things...coming home to my boys every day. I am SO SO SO thankful for them and love them to death. I had a dream the other night that we had another baby boy and he looked IDENTICAL to Colin (they were older in the dream...like around 3 or 4) and we were frustrated because we didn't know which one was which. Then we kept forgetting what the new boys name was so we would change it all the time. Talk about bad parents! Can't tell them apart and don't know their names! Anyway, even though it was an absurd dream, it made me excited about adding to our family later. A girl would be fun! Someone I can actually invest in and guide to eventually be a Godly woman. It would be fun to dress her up, go shopping with her, have slumber parties with her friends. But then another boy would be a blast as well! I love the idea of having a house full of rowdy boys that I am constantly cleaning up after. I love the idea of watching Jeff teach our boys how to be men of God. Well I didn't mean to ramble on this one...I'll move on!

A few plans for the rest of the week...youth conference in tatum today, church, another full week of school. Then next weekend is Labor Day weekend and I am going to Arlington.

A picture I want to share...why I love my husband so much. He is a man of humor!

Effable

Ef´fa`ble

a.

1.

Capable of being uttered or explained; utterable.

This is something new I am going to try. I found a website that is a Random Word Generator. Everyonce in a while, I will post the definition of the new vocabulary word and try to use the word at least 3 times in my post. So here it goes.....Effable!

LOTS going on! School starts on Monday and I am excited, but a little nervous. I met over 1/2 of my class on Thursday night. (Usually I only have like 4 kids show up, so this was a good sign to have 13 show up!) They seem like sweet kids that are excited to start school. I'm nervous about this new curriculum that we are starting this year. It will eventually be a really good thing for me and my students, but it is really going to stink this year learning and implementing it. It is a VERY in depth/time consuming thing to start! We'll see how it goes.

The youth ministry is rolling along! Loving it more and more everyday. But at the same time my heart gets heavier and heavier for these youth the closer I get to them. The more I get to know them and spend time with them and talk with them I see how very very broken and lost some of these students are. There are some that seem to slightly care and want to change. But then there are some that think they are just fine or know they are screwed up, but think its funny instead. That breaks my heart. But all in all, things are going good. We had our new 7th graders move up and that was exciting! We had Mess Fest (our back to school party) last Wednesday and the kids had a BLAST! It was so fun to watch....and even get ambushed a little. I got "floured" by some youth. Jeff got it worse though. He got "pizza faced" by one of our new 7th graders (probably a sign of things to come from that particular student! ha!). And then Jeff got body slammed into a pool of wet cheetos and tomato sauce. Gross! It was fun though. We have our D-Now coming up and I am SO excited! It is community wide (about 5 other churches join in). And our church is hosting it. We are getting a band, we are using the curriculum "Remedy" that my friend, Mary, wrote! She is awesome. She has this talent to make a lesson effable for youth! And Daniel is speaking all weekend. Very excited about all of that. Jeff designed the logo for the weekend that will also go on our T-shirts. He did a great job. Check out the logo here...

You can be the remedy

Colin is growing ALL the time. He is getting so tall! And his baby features are slowly going away. He has that "big boy" face now! We are working on talking in longer sentences. He can no longer just say, "Milk!" He has to say, "I want more milk please." He's really good at it, he just forgets to talk that way. I guess you could say I am teaching him to be more effable. He can say his ABC's, count to 10, and tell us all his body parts! We will probably start working on his colors and recognizing the letters of the alphabet in isolation. He starts his MDO program on Sept. 3. He will only go on Thursdays for now. Next Thursday will be his "Meet the Teacher" night. I am excited about that! He is such a sweet boy and I find such joy in watching him grow up!

We still have some things to call about/find out about. But we are hoping to buy the rest of the land behind our house pretty soon! We will probably be able to buy all the way back to the railroad track which should give us a total of almost an acre. Our neighbors are acting interested in selling us the portion behind their house as well. Which would be AWESOME! because that would be 1 and1/2 to 2 acres. But I don't think we would be able to afford that. But hey, I can dream, right?

I am never unamazed at how good God is. It is sometimes uneffable. I can't even put it into words. He provides for us all the time. There are months that I wonder how we are going to afford groceries until the next paycheck or where I am praying that Colin isn't sick because I can't afford to take him to the doctor! But we have NEVER been without the things we need. Sometimes I find myself being without things I WANT. But even then, I am finding that the things I want are changing to match just what I need. I need some food, and some electricity and water. I need gas in the cars. I need my boys and the rest of my family. I need my friends. And most importantly I need my relationship with Christ! I couldn't want anything else!

You gave me life and showed me kindness, and in your providence watched over my spirit. Job 10:12

We are back...

from vacation. It was a lovely time. Very relaxing and very fun to watch Colin have fun. The only time I got frustrated is when Colin's love for wind chimes was a bit overstimulated in all the souvenir shops. He went WILD when he saw them. He would go running down the aisles with both hands sticking out as to touch as many as possible. At one store he got so excited that he fell and almost knocked over a whole stand of wind chimes. It was quite noisy. Needless to say...I bought him a wind chime. I suppose the rest of vacation could be told through some pictures, so here they are. Take a look...

Port Aransas 2009

Now I will ramble for a bit...

Now we are back and gearing up for the start of school. I am actually kind of excited. I always love starting fresh with a new school year and getting back into a routine. I am also excited for fall weather and EF football games. (I don't care at all about football...I just like to go and socialize). I am excited about our Community Wide Disciple Now that Crossroads is hosting. I am excited about halloween. I know that is far off, but its still fun.

Also, Colin will be going to a mother's day out program every Thursday starting in the beginning of September. I am excited for him. I really think he will like going to "school" and being around other kids. He doesn't get to do that too often and when he does he gets really excited. If all goes well (and depending on Jeff's schedule in the Spring since he is the one who will have to pick up/take him) we will have him go 2 days a week next semester. Then the next fall he will go all day to a dayschool.

On another note, I am SO excited that Jeff is graduating in May! I am so proud of him. He is so smart and has worked very hard. I was really excited about him NOT being in school for a while, but i think he has decided to go right back in for his masters. ETBU is on schedule to start a masters level program in 2010 and if it does he and some other guys are planning on going together. So, as much as I was excited about him taking a break, I am excited that he is going for that. And it does make sense to hurry up and do it and to do it with friends who can encourage eachother along the way. So, way to go Jeff!

I have run out of things to say.....

So goodbye.

White Man

Just got back from kids camp. Had a great time, but so glad to be back. Now I am preparing for vacation. We leave tomorrow. I am so so excited, but having a really hard time getting motivated to pack. Maybe its because I am tired of packing and unpacking. I feel like thats all I have done this summer! But its been a good and fun summer. I am also glad that this time of packing/leaving I get to take Colin with me instead of leaving him! I can't wait to see how he does. I'm a little nervous, because he is a little dare devil and is not afraid of anything. That is a good thing, but its also bad when he refuses to wear floaties or a life jacket. I have been trying them on him so he will get used to it, but he gets really mad and rips them off. What a wild man!

Anyway, I saw this video on youtube and thought it was really good, so I wanted to share. It made me think about The Shack that I have been reading. Without giving away too much (for those of you that have not read it), the book portrays God in a way that is not expected and that this world may not even be comfortable with. Now...for the record....I do not take this book literally. But I do, however, find truth in the fact that we cannot assume that we know God to his fullest extent. God is bigger than us and our brains. And when we think we know him fully....we "man-size" him. God does not deserve to be man-sized. Not that we shouldn't strive to know him fully.

Anyway, this video is a little silly, but there is alot of truth in it. It goes against the whole idea that America has that, "God is a middle-class white republican."

Here is the link...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvBz2Y0chdE