Oh, the weather outside is frightful….

It’s a whoppin’ 2 degrees outside this morning with a wind chill of -12.  Tonight it is supposed to get down to -15, and my bones won’t even let me think about what the wind chill will be.

We have received some very pretty snow, though.  And I’m sure my dear sis just can’t wait to see these pictures. So, without further ado:

Most of the snow we received yesterday,

but it is still lightly snowing.

Inside, it is delightful. 🙂

Especially with one of our Christmas gifts.

Now Tim can keep his little one in his office at the church. His office has no heat source without his little electric fireplace. I’m thankful today is his day off. I’m not sure even his fireplace could keep his office tolerable.

Last night, Grandma and the grandkids play a rousing game of Monopoly,

while Butterscotch monopolized the game box.

I have noticed since his reappearance in our life, he has become much more sociable.

And a smidge more ornery…. maybe stubborn would be a better word.

I think Hubby, Grandma, and the kids are going to try to leave back for Missouri tomorrow. Hopefully the roads will be cleared by then.

 

A very relaxed Christmas

Amidst all the hustle and bustle and work schedules, we were able to have quite the relaxed Christmas.

It was so relaxed that the Smurf slept under the tree the whole time we were opening gifts.

It takes a while for some of our family members to wake up – even on Christmas morning. I’ll never understand that. 🙂

When he did wake up he told the most, ummm, interesting version of the Christmas story.

As usual, most of our pets got in on the fray.

The Smurf, of course, slept through the whole thing, and Tickles was content to stay just a little bit away from the excitement.

We had a very simple (to fix) dinner of steaks and roasted sweet & yellow potatoes. I didn’t even fix a desert.  And I may or may not have been asleep by 5:30 that afternoon. 😉  I think only sleeping for 1-3 hours for the last two or three weeks caught up with me.

My cats love Christmas

I was going to post about how ornery and naughty my animals have been, and they have been very bad these last few days, but I decided to post some pictures of the cats enjoying their Christmas surroundings.

This is an electric fireplace. I promise her little tail isn’t getting too warm.

She also has her own little spot under the tree. We even left a path for her to get there. I’m thankful that she has decided to sleep under the tree rather than destroying it.

All three cats have visited baby Jesus.

And two of my cats have

knocked over five plants on three different occasions.

Oh wait, I wasn’t going to post about their orneriness…

I’m not even going to post about my dog. She’s really on my naughty list. But would someone please explain to me why my dog needs to wake me up every one and a half hours every. single. night. to go potty, but can hold it all day long while I’m gone? And why do dogs have a driving urge to eat out of the litter box and then proceed to make a huge mess out of what is left?  I seriously need to get a baby gate for our laundry room. Sigh…

Oh, yeah, I wasn’t going to post about the orneriness.

I think I need to go get some coffee. And yes, I know, I’m not supposed to.

An Answer to prayer…. What I am doing

Sorry, I think my ‘tomorrow’ was a few days ago. What I am doing is keeping me rather busy this week. 😉

Last week we received a huge answer to prayer: my job at the Christian book store has become permanent.

Thank you, Lord!

I have been working more hours this week, and will work everyday next week except Christmas day. I will also be working quite a bit in January when the owner is on vacation. I am very thankful and blessed. I enjoy working at the bookstore. Not only is it a source of income, but it is also another ministry opportunity.

Of course, along with this comes the necessity of reorganizing my schedule and taking some other things off my plate. I have never been – and will never be – a ‘super woman’. And quite frankly, I don’t think God wants me to be one. I believe many times (And I’m so very guilty of this) we think we have to do everything and be constantly busy to be a ‘good’ person or a ‘good’ Christian.  Many times God doesn’t want our activity, he wants us to be still and know that He is God.

At any rate, hubby and I discussed my schedule, and were in agreement of what to keep and what to take off my plate.

Currently, I put in about 20-30 hours per week doing ministry at/for/with the church.  It would be impossible to keep up that schedule, work at the bookstore, homeschool my kids, keep my house together, and keep my sanity. Well, okay, my sanity went out the window years ago, but you know what I mean. 😉

So, here is what we have agreed upon:

1. I will no longer be the church secretary. Actually, Tim shares in this job, but I will no longer be able to. The church will need to hire someone to run bulletins and a few other minor secretarial duties.

2. I will no longer be able to teach JAM on Wednesday nights. Please pray that we find a teacher for this position. I teach 5th and 6th graders – that is such a difficult age to be, and the next teacher needs to be very firm, but have patience, understanding, and not be afraid to address difficult topics.

3. I will not be able to do as much visitation. I’ve tried, and it just doesn’t work.  This past Thursday I got up at my normal 3:30 a.m., cleaned and did some laundry, worked all day, got off and went straight to the church to meet someone there, after our talk was over I went up to the nursing home to visit someone. By that time my brain was done. Finito. Fortunately, the woman I was visiting understood, and we laughed a lot together. I then went back to the church and ran bulletins for Sunday and waited to lock up from men’s Bible study. At least I was able to provide ‘entertainment’ for some people with my fried brain. 😀

4. This next semester my children will be gone all day on Monday with basketball practice, so I will move my counseling appointments to Mondays only. I have women’s Bible study that night, so I will be able to devote most of my Mondays to the church.  Tuesday – Saturday will be devoted to homeschooling and work. Unless, of course, I will be needed to work on Monday – which shouldn’t happen too often.

5. I will still continue as Worship Director.

6. I will still continue to preach occasionally. Well, it may be a bit more.  Since I am working, Tim will be taking the kids to all of their basketball games. There have been times that we have had to stay over where we have the games due to bad weather, and I think a few of the games are in Iowa, so they would not be able to be back in time for church from those games.

7. I will continue to work on boundary setting and saying the word “no”  when necessary. 🙂  I could use prayers on that one as well.

 

Well, I must be off to work. Have a blessed day, everyone!

 

What my kids are up to these days…

Basketball.  I am so thankful that my kids have the opportunity to participate in team sports, even though they have to travel several hours to get to practice. I am also thankful for the spiritual emphasis their coaches put forth in their teams, and the emphasis they put on unity and team playing. This past weekend was their first time to play for the Hastings Red Tide.  The girls won two games and lost one. The guys won one and lost one.

 

They have also gone on two mission trips to Parmelee, SD to minister to the Indian children there.

Last night they sang, played, and did puppets up at our local nursing home. I was there, but didn’t get any pictures as I left my phone in the car.

Tomorrow I will share what I’ve been up to/ will be up to. 🙂

Grocery Shopping

I have a love/hate relationship with it.

Sometimes I love it. I love the challenge of shopping and keeping everything under budget. I love searching for, and getting good deals. I like seeing the numbers on the register decrease when the cashier is scanning in my coupons – while praying the final total is under, or at least the same amount of cash I have in my ‘grocery’ envelope. I love people watching and talking with others as they shop, and visiting with people I know.

Sometimes I hate it. Okay, hate really is too strong a word here.

Sometimes I dislike it. (better?)

Today is one of those ‘dislike’ days. I’m still not feeling 100% and lack energy, so today I dislike the fact that I have to travel a half hour to get to the grocery store. Actually, I’m disliking the fact that I need to get up, get a shower (sounds completely exhausting!), and get dressed to go to the store, but I’m thinking everyone would appreciate it. That, and the fact I don’t wish to be featured as one of those *People of Wal-Mart*.   😛  I also dislike trying to figure out how to get everything we need, going through the grocery list and eliminating items, and figuring out how to be creative on a budget when my head is already in pain and spinning. (I usually enjoy that challenge.)

But alas, the pantry is bare and the refrigerator is empty. Well, not completely: there is 1/4 bag of baby carrots, a jar of apple butter, pear butter, dandelion jelly, and some mayo in there, but that is all. Oh, and some dying lettuce. And for some reason, my family thinks they might like to eat – and baby carrots dipped in dandelion jelly isn’t quite what they had in mind. 😉

I think I will drag my son along with me. Or maybe he will be dragging me along with him. I can give him the list and then sit down on a bench along with the old men who are not-so-patiently waiting for their wives to finish shopping.

That’s it, my son can do the shopping. His future wife will appreciate me for it. 😀

I’m such a giving person….

 

That being said, I guess it isn’t nice to share everything.

I have shared my ‘lovely’ stomach virus with my dear husband.  Poor guy.

Today he was supposed to be going to Hastings to attend our kids first basketball tournament. I have to work today and tomorrow, so our kids are staying with their friends and friends’ family. I am very thankful for them!

Every Tuesday and Thursday, my kiddos ride up to Hastings for basketball practice with their friends and team mates. Sometimes their parents take them, and sometimes this young man drives…

Don’t worry, Grandparents, he is a good driver, and I trust him.

Great family and great kids!

I am praying the kids have a great time this weekend and don’t get hurt. I am also praying that Tim gets better quickly, as I have to work both today and tomorrow, and have no idea where his sermon notes are, and have not enough time to put one together.

Well, I’m off to work. Actually, I’m stopping by Wal-Mart first to pick up my new glasses.  Mama, my children said I look just like you when I put them on. 🙂   I’ll have to tell you about that conversation, though, sometime…. 😉

Things you can’t schedule

Mama and I have had this discussion before… there are just some things in life you can’t schedule.

1. Funerals.  They rarely happen at a convenient time. That being said, no one ever really wants their loved one to pass, so funerals are never convenient.

2. Sickness.  I’ve really tried this. I’ve really, really tried. I’ve felt sickness coming on and have tried to fight it until it was a more convenient time. In fact, I tried that this past weekend.

Friday, I felt something coming on, but I knew I couldn’t give in. I had to work all day, and then we had the Christmas concert that night. I also had to work Saturday, and then we had my work Christmas party to attend. Then, Sunday my kids were going to be gone, and so was our pianist, so I was the only one who could play an instrument.

I squeaked through Friday and most of Saturday. Saturday evening I was so tired, but we went to the party (read: I didn’t have to make supper. 😉 ).

I woke up around 2:30 Sunday morning as sick as a dog. Ugh. As I lay there, I thought, “Well, I can go to church long enough to play the piano for worship and then just lay down in the youth room on one of the couches.” After a few minutes I knew that wouldn’t work because my head was hurting so badly that the dog’s snoring was making me want to cry.  So, then I thought, “I will go and put all the music together and get the tv and PowerPoint hooked up.” We were having service in the Family Life Center because all of our equipment over there for the concert, which also means that I need to do PowerPoint because our computer that has the updated PowerPoint to go widescreen. I still had PowerPoint to do Sunday morning.   After I got up to use the bathroom, I realized that I would not be able to even make it out the door. Ugh.

As the kids were going out the door early Sunday morning on their way to a missions trip, they asked who was going to play music. I told them the guys could sing a capella – it would be beautiful.

When Tim got up I told him I couldn’t make it. He asked who would play. I told him the guys could sing a capella – it would be beautiful. He thought I was being sarcastic. I was being serious. Kudos to him for pulling everything together for me. While he is a whiz on the sound system, computers are not his forte. He organized all the music for the praise team, connected the computer and tv together, and got PowerPoint running. I love that guy!

From what I understand, the guys did sound great a capella.  One of the guys on the praise team dropped by some Theraflu after church – God bless him!

I am feeling a bit better today. I still don’t want to look at food, but my head isn’t hurting so bad, and I have a smidge more energy.  I did cancel Bible study for tonight. I don’t think anyone would appreciate me sharing.

 

Friday

This Friday we are having a community Christmas concert at our church. We are having it in the Family Life Center.

This is a joint venture between our praise team/band and a Gospel music singer named Steve Desmond. He’s a great guy and a great singer. 🙂

Here is our praise team, plus a member.

Someone mentioned that we looked like we were from Duck Dynasty. Yep, pretty much. 😀

The gentleman in the gray sweat shirt beside Joel is not on the praise team, but is the man who taught Joel how to play drums. He is a fantastic drummer and was self-taught.  He owns a very nice drum set, but it is way too loud to play in our church building (unless we had a drum cage), which is one of the reasons we are having the concert at the FLC. He will be playing on all but one of our songs. Joel has an electronic set, which can be controlled through the sound system and blended in with the other instruments.  Joel will be playing my bass, except for one song that he will be drumming, and I will play the keyboard and bell kit. This will be so much fun! Shan, of course, will be playing her guitar. She will also be singing a duet with the guy in the camo shirt. They are going to be singing this song:

We are shortening it a bit.

We are also having a funeral on Friday.  I feel bad for Tim because I won’t be there to help. I have to work Friday and will come speeding in just in time for the concert. There was no way I could get off work, as my co-worker has two doctor appointments that day, and I will be by myself most of the day. Tim and I are usually both involved with the funeral services. I feel like I’m being negligent.

 

Well, I’m off!  The kids and I have an eye doctor appointment, and I need to pick up supplies for the funeral and concert.

 

 

 

 

Twenty-four years

Today is Tim and my anniversary. We have been married for 24 year. It doesn’t seem like it. It seems like just yesterday we started this journey of marriage.

I am so thankful that God had chosen us to be together, and so thankful for the wonderful man to whom I am married.

I am also thankful that this anniversary falls on our day off.  🙂

Don’t know exactly what we will do to celebrate, but we are off to the big city of McCook to do something fun.