Odd and Ends

Time to end my long silence… Keith is at a prayer time at the church and I should be in bed, but I really have to peck out a few lines to you, my faithful friends! So, what have I been up to?? Several things spring to mind…

-I still feel like I’m catching up from the busy-ness of the last few months. Last Saturday I took Caleb and Logan over to Dad and Dru’s in the morning and hired my niece, Erica, to come help me clean. That was sure a boost! My floors, bathroom and dusting finally got done! I feel like I’m slowly getting “caught up”, whatever that means. On some days, though, I still feel overwhelmed with all the demands on my time – and the seemingly endless list of things a homemaker, wife, Mom, and “school teacher” needs to do. At least one day this week I was feeling really discouraged and overwhelmed. I’m really glad I don’t feel like that every day!

-Okay, here are some true confessions. Because I’m “better at it”, it falls to me to do the budgeting, banking, paying bills, etc. I put that in quotes because of the following confession: In all the craziness around here and for some reasons unknown even to me, I fell WAY behind in my book-keeping. We use “Money Matters” on the computer so I balance the budget and checkbook, etc. on the computer. Anyway, a few weeks ago I spent an hour or two entering receipts, paying bills, etc. It was then I discovered that I had forgotten to pay our Visa bill. It was about 10 days late. A day or two later, I discovered that all the work I had done on the computer n the previous few days had not been saved for some reason. Arrrrgggggg!!!! That discouraged me and I didn’t get back to it for another week or two. By that time, several more bills were late. Also, the next Visa bill had arrived and I saw that we paid $32 in interest for my forgetfulness. Wouldn’t you agree that this is inexcusable!?!?!? So, I’m now almost caught up with the budgeting and I’ve determined to change my ways!

-Did you know Christmas is almost here? Yeah, I know it’s a month and a half away, but you know how fast that goes! I was having a really hard time getting excited about Christmas. I was feeling rather scrooge-like in relation to gifts, decorations, etc. I think it’s partly because I’m already so busy with home-schooling, etc., that it seems like there’s no way I can do all the extra stuff of Christmas. It might also be partly because of the heavy stuff that Keith and I are going through right now. Anyway, we did sit down and start to think about what gifts we might want to give and that helped get me going. When we went to Stormer Lake I took the Lee Valley catalogues along so we could start “shopping”. Now I’m shopping on-line and almost ready to start ordering a bunch of stuff. I really like shopping from my living room! So, most gifts this year are coming from Lee Valley, Amazon (free shipping!), and Christianbook.com! I also want to make Christmas more simple and meaningful. One thing I want to do with the kids this year is an Advent calendar. I need to go pick one up at Treasure House. So, I’d like to hear if you have ideas for keeping Christmas simple and meaningful.

-I got invited to a scrap-booking shindig at the high school. So I went last night from about 5:30 – 11:30. It was a lot of fun. There were a few people I sort of knew or had met before, quite a few strangers, and my friend, Kim. Some of these ladies are hard-core, crazy scrap-bookers/card-makers. Talk about paraphenalia! It was amazing. I’m doing “scrap-booking lite” right now because I just want to get my pictures in books! So I’m not decorating most of the pages – mostly just cropping pictures and writing. So I didn’t feel like I was in the same league as most of the ladies, but it was fun anyway. They get together once a month, so I hope to go again. It was fun to meet some new people outside of my little circle!

-God has been changing/freeing/healing my heart in some neat ways. I’m so grateful to my Lord Jesus for His mercy, grace and unfailing love. One of the latest “praises”: I’ve battled with an anger problem for a long time,and after praying and being prayed for at Stormer Lake, I have a new freedom like never before. And you should see the changes in my kids because of it! I’m able to enjoy them so much more these last few weeks – even when they’re naughty. :-) I’m so grateful! “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit says the Lord.”

-That’s all. I must go to bed!!