Yesterday, I had plenty of energy, the pain level went down to a tolerable level, and the day was not a difficult one. In fact, it was rather easy. Thank you, Lord!

Today, Fibro has decided to kick me in the back side (and hips, and legs, and neck, etc………).

Bad timing! Because of certain scheduled activities, this was already slated to be a rough day at work.

I would appreciate your prayers for additional spoons (I couldn’t get it to direct link, but here is the site if you don’t understand the spoon comment. http://www.butyoudontlooksick.com/articles/written-by-christine/the-spoon-theory-written-by-christine-miserandino/) and for a lot less pain.

I know God can deliver more spoons…. he’s done it many times before.

Praying you all have a great day!

I’ve taken my time posting this.

Last Friday, I didn’t have to work, so I went with Tim up to Kearney to visit a gentleman from our church who is in the hospital. For those of you who have been praying for him, he is doing better. It will be a long recovery, but it was good to get to be able to talk to him.

While we were in Kearney, we stopped at a store that makes Lowe’s and Home Depot jealous.

Not only does it have the items that the afore-mentioned stores carry, but they also carry pet supplies, food, cleaning supplies, furniture, etc…

They have it all (well not ALL, but you get the idea).

We went to look for an area rug for the counseling/prayer room. The room is 7′ X 15′

Here are three that I found that are possibilities:

This one is a special order called ‘Katelyn’.  The size I am looking at is 3’10″ X 5′ 5″.  The colors do not show very well in the pictures, but it matches the blue and brown in the room.

This is generic area rug that is 4′X 6′. It is beige with blue and gray speckles. The beige would pop against the dark floor, and the blue speckles would pick up the blue in the walls.

And the third rug is called Callaway.  It is 5′ X 7’6″.  The blue and brown in this rug also matches the room.

So, I want your opinion. (I’ve also wanted to try out the polling feature on this blog, so humor me. )

Which rug would you choose?

Tim mercilessly forced me decided we needed to leave before I had gotten to enjoy the whole store . He wanted to go to Cabelas. Well, after a little bit of trying to remember how to get there, we decided it must be located in North Platte instead of Kearney.

Guess what…. Nope, it’s in Kearney.  I just discovered this fact. We still can’t remember how we got there the last time.

The answer:

Beginning this morning, I will be starting a temporary (probably just a few weeks) job at our local school district as a para educator, while one of them takes some time off.

Yesterday, I had hubby take over the spelling tests so he knew where he should start and what he was doing.

It was hilarious.

The spelling curriculum we use is Spelling Power.

They are tested on words everyday.  In this, the instructor says the word, puts in a sentence form, and then repeats the word.

The hilarious part was putting words into sentence form. I’m sure that the sentences my honey comes up with over the next few weeks, if they are anything like the ones he came up with yesterday, will be quite educational entertaining.

What was our project?

I had the kids make homemade pizza.  They made the dough from scratch:

Pizza Dough Recipe

1 Cup Warm Water

2 TBSP Oil

2 1/2 to 3 Cups flour

1 TBSP Sugar

1 tsp Salt

2  1/2 tsp Yeast

Mix all ingredients well, and knead until it forms a nice sticky ball. Let rest for 5 minutes. Grease hands and baking sheet well. Spread dough out onto bottom of baking sheet. Spread on Sauce, Add Toppings and Cheese. Bake @ 350 degrees for about 12-15 minutes Makes 1 large sheet sized pizza.

They (Joel especially) had fun watching the yeast, which is a single-cell fungus, start to work in the warm water.

Unfortunately, I am allergic to yeast, so I made my own version (which is just as good, IMO).

My crust is made out of a buckwheat flat bread, with a sauce consisting of roasted red bell peppers, onions, and carrots. It is topped with sheep’s milk cheese and deer meat.

On Wednesday, the kids have an experiment using yeast in another way.  From reading ahead, it looks like this experiment is going to look and smell bad.    Glad Tim’s going to be in charge of the experiments for the next several weeks.

Buckwheat cereal. Thank you, Wal-Mart!

The only other place that I have found buckwheat cereal is at Whole Foods, and then not all of them carry it. And this price is much less expensive than what I usually pay at Whole Foods.

I love hot buckwheat cereal, especially with butternut squash or pumpkin.

Guess what I’m having for breakfast in the morning.

The book:

Before You Meet Prince Charming: a Guide to Radiant Purity

This book encourages young ladies to take a courageous stand for purity.  Not just physical purity, but emotional purity as well. It was mainly written to young ladies who have yet to enter relationships with young men, giving them practical and biblical guidelines in a very discreet yet humorous manner. The author, Sarah Mally, strongly advocates courting vs. dating with the express purpose of saving and guarding hearts and bodies for the one whom God has intended they marry.  She focuses on the idea that young ladies should prepare themselves by growing in Christ and becoming a woman of Godly character. It was a very good read, and I will be giving it to my daughter. There were maybe one or two points that I may not have agreed with quite as strongly as her views, but I agreed with the premise.

I was saddened the other day when I got on Facebook to see one of my friend’s young daughter – about 9 or 10 years old – talking about needing a boyfriend. First of all, a 9-year-old should NOT have a Facebook page. I know her mother set it up and lied about her age, which disturbs me.  Second, a 9-year-old does not need a boyfriend. Many wise adults gave her advice of not getting a boyfriend and enjoying the time she has as a *single*, but she would not be swayed. I believe one of the reasons this happens is the constant questioning of young girls by adults: “Do you have a boyfriend yet?” “What boys do you like?”  I hear it all the time and it is disturbing. We are giving these young girls – as early as five years old – the idea that they cannot be happy or fulfilled unless they have a boy in their lives. (The same holds true for asking little boys if they have a girlfriend.)  I would much prefer my daughter learn that God is her fulfillment and true happiness, and that marriage is a gift from God, not a necessity for true happiness. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happily married. My husband is a wonderful gift from God. I believe God created and ordained marriage – and it’s a beautiful thing! But we need to learn that He (God) is all we need and the true supplier of our needs and happiness. Our spouses are human and will at times disappoint us, but God never disappoints.

The book also focuses on finding the ministry that God has created for us to do. I think we often forget that we have been created for His purpose, to do His will and His service, and to reach others for Christ.

*Rant Sermon* I appreciated this ministry focus because we live in such a ‘me’ focused world… What can God do for me? How can church benefit me? What can I get out of worship? I hear people saying, “I didn’t get anything out of worship today.” This attitude has become more prevalent over the last decade or so with the idea that we need to be entertained when we go to worship. We have forgotten that we are worshipping God. That He is the one who should ‘get’ something out of our worship. He is our creator, the Author of our salvation. He has freely given us the gift of grace and eternal life. That fact alone should make us want to fall to our knees with overwhelming heartfelt worship and adoration.

We aren’t to worship ourselves or our feelings. Feelings are fickle, and are not good barometers of the truth. We offer up praise and worship to Him so that He can be glorified, not our feelings. When we come into worship with the attitude of ‘I need to be blessed today’ or the attitude of ’Bless me if you can’, we are coming in with the wrong attitude. When we come to worship with our hearts and minds on Him, then we will be blessed by our obedience to worship Him.

I remember a time in my adult life that I just really didn’t look forward to listening to the pastor speak. His delivery seemed dry and not very interesting. I found my thoughts wandering to other things. One day God convicted me through the words of another Christian. God let me know that I was not there to be entertained. I was there to praise and worship Him, to learn and grow in my Christian walk, and to be convicted by the scripture to become more like Christ. It didn’t matter if I didn’t like the sermon delivery style. The pastor was presenting the Word of God. It was my responsibility to listen and apply it to my life. You know what? After my attitude changed, I found so many spiritual truths being presented each Sunday. It was a time of great spiritual growth in my life. Did the pastor improve or change his style? No. What had changed was my attitude and purpose. Our attitudes and focus should be on Christ. When our attitudes and focus are on Christ, then we are able to minister to others and fulfill His purpose for our lives. *end rant sermon* (maybe )

But I digress…

I would definitely recommend this book to the parents of young ladies who wish to guard their children’s hearts, and to the young ladies, themselves. The book goes directly against the main-stream beliefs of the what the world thinks a relationship should look like between young men and women. I’m sure that in the near future we will hear much opposition to the stance we are taking on ‘dating’, even from Christians. But that’s okay. We already get grief from other Christians because we homeschool (which I find interesting). God gave our children to us to guide, nurture, protect, and instruct. And we will do so in the way that He is telling us, not how the world tells us we should.

Tim had just pulled down the part of the ceiling that had a hole in it. There was still carpet on the floor, and pulling down the ceiling added and inch or two of dirt in places.

After pulling the carpet and cleaning up the dirt.

I burned through quite a bit of sand paper.

And this is the floor after two coats of floor paint.  It’s not perfect, but it looks much better.

Next week, a gentleman in our church will be putting in the moulding (Thank you, RS!), and Tim will put the closet doors back on and finish up.

And speaking of wood floors, check out Shan on the basketball court yesterday…

At this point, she had scored all the points for the team.  It was a great game, going into overtime. Unfortunately, they lost by one point. This was on the public school team. Saturday they will be playing at a homeschool triangular. Joel played yesterday as well, but I was unable to get a picture.

And I have to say that these ladies are just awesome! It has been so neat to see each of them grow and learn, and to see how much they have taught me. They are truly a blessing, and I thank God for them!

We are planning a women’s outing sometime (hopefully soon) so I am trying to figure out what we should do. One thought is to go on a ladies shopping trip, but that may not be the best idea for all of us.  I have some other ideas, but I also know several of you are very creative…. so, if you have any creative ideas you would like to share, I’d love to hear/see them.

It was a wildly windy day. Driving home was an adventure. Tumbleweed dodging was the name of the game for most of the trip home. I felt for Tim having to drive and buck the wind, but we did see some interesting sights.

Because of the wind, trees had been uprooted, small storage buildings had fallen over, and many roofs had been peeled back. We even saw a grain bin that had blown over. My guess was that it was empty. When we stopped to get gas, the house beside the station had some wind damage as well.

Part of the car port had blown onto the roof, and the other part of it had blown around to the front porch.

By the time we arrived home – around 5:30 p.m., the wind had decreased considerably. Tim went on into town to grab some cat food and New Year’s Eve snack foods. Being the party animals we are , we must have all fallen asleep right after we ate. None of us made it to mid-night. Not that I was trying. I think Shan was the only one who was planning on being up. She wanted to text her friend Happy New Year.

I woke up around 4:15 this morning in the recliner with a dog sound asleep on my lap. Shan woke up around the same time on the couch and decided that it would not be a good time to text her friend back to wish her a Happy New Year. (smart girl ).