Tag Archives: Christian Faith

August 8, 2013 · 12:49 pm

Transitions Part 5: A 1700 Mile Adventure

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Well, we’ve come to Saturday, August 4, 2012 now, and have left Republic, MO to head toward Owasso, OK, where an old and dear friend of mine lives with his wife. When he found out we would be driving cross country to move to Albuquerque, he was wonderful enough to offer their hospitality to us, inviting the boys and me to come there for the night. Owasso is a suburb of Tulsa, OK, and I found it quite pretty during our drive to Chip and Sheila’s home.

We arrived to find Chip and Sheila preparing a wonderful cookout dinner. Chip was grilling burgers, while Sheila had made really good potato salad, and all sorts of other things I don’t remember, but it was all very good! They made us feel very welcome, and were very patient with my boys.

The boys especially loved the pool in the back yard, and because their swimwear was packed separately since we’d begun our trip at Torch Lake in northern MI, I was able to easily get it for them. They spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening in the pool.

Here, all four boys are playing in the water . . .

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Here is “The Puzzler” jumping in . . .

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and now, “Mr. Loquacious” taking the plunge as well!

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They had, as you can see, a great time!

When we noticed that there was something floating in the air, Chip and Sheila explained it was ash from the wild fires. Heading west, this was our first real experience with the wild-fire season, and they told us that we might not even be able to continue on the next day, as the freeway we were taking to Oklahoma City had been closed because of the fires, and could get closed again. I had seen signs on the freeway warning about not driving through smoke, something I’ve never seen on freeway signage before! All was well though, and we were able to continue on the next day.

We were so glad we got to stop and spend that time with our friends, I hadn’t seen Chip since his nephew’s wedding, about eight years ago, so it was great to see him and to meet his new wife. All to soon, it was time to get on the road for our next stop, Oklahoma City.

Here we are, getting our good-bye pictures!

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We continued on our adventure, stopping in Oklahoma City, OK. There, we were meeting up for lunch with a friend of mine from an online home-schooling group called CCU (Christ Centered Unschooling). This was exciting for me, we’d never met in person, and it’s just the second time for me to meet a friend from the list who lives far away. Deanna doesn’t actually live IN Oklahoma City, I believe she drove about 80 miles to meet us! We met at this really cool fast food place called City Bites. It was not your usual fast food place though. They had fabulous salads and subs, with lots of mix and match ingredients. My kids really loved the décor in the restaurant, it was all sort of a jungle theme! Here are some pictures . . .

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Here we all are, with my friend Deanna West Piercy, from CCU. You can get to know her at one of HER blogs, Tea With Dee. She actually has a few different blogs, I imagine they can be found through Tea With Dee. 🙂

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It was so much fun to spend this time at lunch with my friend, and I’m very glad we made the stop.

Eventually, it was time for City Bites to close for the day, so it was time to hit the road again. We said our good-byes, and headed toward Texas, where we would spend our final night on the road. I’ll tell you about that, and about our arrival to our new home, tomorrow, in my last post for this year’s Summer Blog Hop, so be sure to come back!

And as always, if you sign up to follow by email using the “sign me up” button at the top of the blog, you’ll never miss another post! I’d love to have you join me on my journeys!

Hop on over to the main Summer Blog Hop post to see what 89 other bloggers are talking about! You can go through the topics and find things to inspire, to learn from, or just fun things to enjoy!

Summer Blog Hop

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July 23, 2013 · 1:33 pm

Christi The Coupon Coach: Couponing Made Simple . . . A TOS Molly Crew Review

Full disclosure here, I just love it when I get a review from the Molly Crew at The Old Homeschool Magazine! These reviews are for products for us mamas, not just for the kiddos. 🙂

This time, I received a copy of the book “Couponing Made Simple“, by Christi the Coupon Coach (Christi Bassford).

This is an extremely easy and quick read at 123 pages, and the type is a bit larger than normal, which I personally appreciate, given that my eyes are getting older every day! I was actually able to read this in one day, a major feat in my house, lol!

Christi’s system is pretty simple, as described in the video below:

Right from the beginning, I liked her Dedication page, where Christi did the obligatory dedications to various loved ones, but she also made a point of putting the following in her dedication something that matters to me, and to a lot of my readers: { “Most of all, my work I dedicated to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. It is by His grace that I draw every breath and strive to fulfill the command “whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God” } This is an attitude that is very important to me.

From Christi’s website:

“What if you could save 50% or up to 80% on your grocery bill??? If I can, why can’t you? Join me as I teach my step by step plan that has helped me and others save thousands of dollars on groceries!
There is a lot of buzz about couponing. A lot of people are excited about couponing and want to do it well, but I have found that many become overwhelmed, confused and unorganized.

That is why I have taken the new world of couponing and put it into a book that gives a step by step plan to follow. I have also developed an organization system. This allows people to be successful on their very first trip.”

I was excited to try Christi’s system, because anything that helps me to be a good steward of what God provides to us is something I want to learn about. Unfortunately, I did not do well with the couponing for groceries or household items, primarily because the coupons we received really did not have any for things we actually need or use, plus, I was recovering from surgery, and my husband was doing all of my grocery shopping. Because we ended up with a lot of out-of-pocket costs for my surgery, and are still paying off the surgeries he had in December and January, we really are needing at this time to buy only what we absolutely need, and not stock up on much of anything. That was a bit of a disappointment, but in her book, Christi goes way beyond couponing for groceries and such. She talks about saving money in many other ways, such as thrift shops, yard sales, and the thing that worked for me, the fact that sometimes, it’s worth it to wait for something to go back to full price, if you have the right coupon.

I have long desired to buy a Cuttlebug embossing machine, made by Provocraft, to use along with my Cricut when I am scrapbooking and making my hand crafted cards. The machine is regularly $89.99, but one week, it was on sale for $69.99 at Hobby Lobby. I had been saving a $20.00 gift card I had received as a birthday gift back in January (thank you Charlene!), and thought I would strike while the iron was hot, but Christi says to wait until you can get the BEST deal. Well, Hobby Lobby has a weekly coupon for 40% off, but that works only on regular priced items. If I purchased it at the sale price using my gift card, it would have cost $69.99. I figured out that if I waited a week for it to go off sale, I could use the 40% off coupon, bringing the base price down to $53.99, then stack on top of that my $20.00 gift card, bringing my final price down to $37.77, after the state sales tax was added on.

Here is my Cuttlebug . . .

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Here is my receipt!

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Also, her advice to watch for the rock bottom sale price paid off as well. Hobby Lobby put all of their embossing folders on sale for 50% off, which brought them to $2.50 each, so I got six. Here they are . . .

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They also had the storage tote for embossing folders on 50% off sale, so I got that as well . . .

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And here is the receipt for those items!

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And would you like to see why I so very much desired these things? It was so I could make things like this, for my personal card ministry, and because I also want to begin selling my hand crafted cards. Here are two different cards I made using my Cuttlebug along with my Cricut, which I already own . . .

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So you see, even though I have not yet mastered grocery shopping with coupons, I was able to save a bunch on things I really wanted needed! I do intend to try again with the grocery system when I am able to drive again, and when/if we begin seeing coupons for things we would use.

I think the best part of the book is in chapter ten, “Beyond Couponing”, in which Christi tells us about “the best deal”, for which you don’t even need a coupon, and it is absolutely free. By ending the book with this particular deal, Christi is absolutely living out her Christian testimony, and following a command given by Jesus Christ. I hope you will read it, and believe, because I’d love to meet you in Heaven one day! 🙂

I do recommend this book if you want to read about different ways to save money for your family. If you do want to coupon, Christi also gives a list of her favorite online coupon match sites here.

You can purchase “Couponing Made Simple” by Christi the Coupon Coach” here. The Physical copy of the book is $18.00, and the Kindle edition is $4.99.

To find out what other crew members thought about this book, please click below

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July 19, 2013 · 8:23 am

Life Principles of the Happiest and Most Successful Among Us: 25 Truths . . .a TOS Review

We were given the book Life Principles of the Happiest and Most Successful Among Us: 25 Truths from Ed Douglas Publications, written by Ed Douglas, a retired businessman, to review.

At 150 pages, it is a fairly quick and easy read. Mr. Douglas is also the author of two other books, “Making a Million With Only $2000: Every Young Person Can Do It”, and “The Money Marathon: 7 Simple Steps to Financial Freedom”. He gives seminars to adults and students about financial topics, as well as seminars on topics of character, values and virtue. Mr. Douglas has also served under three different Missouri Governors in positions such as Commissioner of the Missouri Highway and Transportation Commission, and President of the Northwest Missouri State University Board of Regents. He is currently serving on the William Jewell College Board, a number of local civic boards, and is an active member of his local church. He has been the high school tennis coach for the past fifteen years and is a member of the Fifty States Marathon Club, having run sixteen marathons in fifteen states.

From the website:

“This book began as a three page list that Ed had compiled and titled “Life’s Truths” or “25 Tips for an Enjoyable Life.” He shared the list with friends, acquaintances, and students that he coached as the head high school tennis coach.

Today, in a time of declining morals and values, the book is a motivational and inspirational guide built around Christian principles about what is really important in life. The book covers character and values, caring and compassionately dealing with others, making a difference in the world, and much more. In today’s fast-paced word, there doesn’t seem to be time to discuss these important concepts with children and others, so each truth is concise and easy to read, followed by discussion questions.”

My impressions:

This book is meant to be for students in grades 6 through 12, and is written in relatively short chapters of about four pages each, which includes discussion questions at the close of each chapter. Unfortunately, in our case at least, it was written above what my kids could really read and understand, given that they have varying special needs. I did read it myself, however, and discuss various truths with them after reading and thinking on how to relate the truths to them in ways they would be able to comprehend.

Some of the 25 truths in this book that I was able to relate to my children based upon things in their own lives are:

Truth # 3 – Watch What You Say, Do And Write

Truth # 5 – Tell the Truth

Truth # 8 – Be Quick To Apologize

Truth # 11 – Take it One Step at a Time

I was able to take these truths, and kind of change how we discussed them away from the business oriented theme of the book, to more of a biblical theme. As this book is marketed as a Christian book, I think I would have preferred to see the 25 truths written in terms of living a good Christian testimony, as opposed to what seems to me to be a book about becoming successful financially. God never promised financial success, but He does want us to live a good testimony. Also, there were some areas that touched on topics I don’t believe my children need to read about at this point in their lives, such as in truth # 3, “Watch What You Say, Do and Write”, in which he talks about the infidelities of Tiger Woods and former Governor Mark Sanford, and how it all came out in the tabloid press. I did use this truth, but preferred to use other examples, such as their everyday behavior, both at home and in front of others.

I think this book would work well with secular home-schoolers, and with adults, and it really is a good book if what you are looking for is a “how to be a success financially and in business” book, but it wasn’t a great fit for our family.

“Life Principles of the Happiest and Most Successful Among Us: 25 Truths” by Ed Douglas is available here for $12.50

Other crewmembers reviewed this book as well, so please sail on over to find out their thoughts!
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July 10, 2013 · 9:51 am

Transitions, part 1

A year ago, my husband had already been here in Albuquerque, New Mexico for about a week, busily finding us a house to rent before he needed to report to his job.

Here is my husband’s car, loaded up for his trip before he left Michigan . . .

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The blankets are to cover up things like his computer and TV (he was there a whole month before we were, so it was nice for him to have those!), and also for him to use for sleeping until we arrived.

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It doesn’t look like he took a lot, but we space bagged ALL of his clothing, and he was able to take it in the areas you see filled with stuff. 🙂

And here he is, about to leave for his part of our new life in Albuquerque!

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Meanwhile, back in Port Huron, Michigan, our boys and I were getting ready to move the household and ourselves to New Mexico, the biggest move I’ve ever managed on my own. We began packing up the rest of our things, beginning with my scrapbooking and papercrafting supplies, since I would not be able to either go out to scrapbooking night anymore now that my husband was gone, and wouldn’t have time anyway.

Here I am, boxing up my big Crop in Style xxl tote . . .

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This pile of boxes, with the exception of the flat box in the front (that’s the TV), are my crafting things, plus one box of piano lesson books.

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We took a break on the fourth of July. Although my husband didn’t want me to take the boys to the fireworks by myself, they did do sparklers out in front of the house . . .

“Mr. Loquacious” . . .

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“The Batman”

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“The Artist”

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“The Puzzler”

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And then when it got dark, we joined in with our next door neighbors and combined the (legal) fireworks we had purchased.

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Our church back in Michigan also had Vacation Bible School the week before our actual move, and a dear friend at church (thank you again, Phyllis!) offered to take the boys each day so I could get errands done without having to drag the boys around and take twice as long.

Here is “Mr. Loquacious” . . .

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“The Puzzler” . . .

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“The Batman” . . .

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and “The Artist” . . .

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There is a family who brings a couple of horses for the final day of Vacation Bible School, so the kids can have rides.

Here is “The Artist” . . .

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“The Puzzler”

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“Mr. Loquacious”

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and “The Batman”

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On the final day of VBS, “The Puzzler” received Jesus Christ as his Savior, and he was baptized at the end of morning service that Sunday.

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On our very last Sunday at Sparlingville Baptist Church, our church family gave an afterglow with ice cream and cake in our honor. Before that, at the close of service, Pastor Milton called the boys and me up onto the platform, and thanked us for our years at Sparlingville, after which he gave me this beautiful plaque from the church . . .

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. . .which now is displayed in our home here in Albuquerque.

The following day, Monday, August 1, 2012, was moving day. The moving truck arrived, and the men loaded it up!

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Soon after that, the boys and I loaded up the minivan with what we were taking on the road, and off we went, on the biggest adventure we’d ever had, a 1700 mile trip across the country, with stops along the way to see family and friends, ending with our arrival in Albuquerque! I will be continuing the story of our trip, and our transition into life in New Mexico, in future posts, so keep watching! 🙂

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June 23, 2013 · 10:27 am

Baker Publishing Group, a Review of The Adventures of Lily Lapp, for the Schoolhouse Review Crew

At least in part because I’m currently recovering from surgery on both of my feet, and (mostly) stuck on the couch with my feet elevated, I was very glad to be chosen for this review. Also, to be honest, I have always enjoyed reading Amish fiction, and this is the first time for me to be reading Amish fiction centered around a child.

Baker Publishing Group has thus far published two of the expected four books in a series called The Adventures of Lily Lapp, and we received both of them to read and review! Book one is titled “Life with Lily“,

and book two is titled “A New Home for Lily“.

These books are geared toward children aged 8 – 12, and you might think they are written for girls, but don’t let either of those things stop you! As most of you know, I have no girls, I have four boys. Every one of my boys came drifting out to the living room, as I lay on the couch, feet propped on pillows, to hear me read these charming stories out loud,

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and every one of my boys sat on the floor while I was reading, and did the coloring pages and word searches that go with each book, and can be downloaded from here.

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Here are some of the finished pages . . .

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The books in this series are a combination of the real life childhood memories of Mary Ann Kinsinger, who was raised Old Order Amish but chose to leave as an adult with her husband, and the best selling writing of Suzanne Woods Fisher. Mary Ann Kinsinger now writes the popular blog A Joyful Chaos, while Suzanne Woods Fisher, author of several Amish novels which include the Lancaster County Secrets series and The Keeper, is the host of the internet radio show Amish Wisdom.

We have very much enjoyed reading both of these books! It was so funny, one of my boys, “Mr. Loquacious” was constantly saying “uh oh”, at different times in the book, because he KNEW that whatever Lily, or one of her younger brothers, was about to get up to was going to get them into trouble. 🙂

My boys were consistent throughout the book in pointing out things like “you say that all the time, mom”, when one of Lily’s parents would give them a bit of a talking to about something. While the Amish don’t necessarily believe EXACTLY the same in all ways as we do regarding matters of faith, there were many areas where my kids spotted right away that it was the same, such as their belief that it wasn’t God honoring to celebrate Halloween, for example.

In “Life with Lily” (you can read an excerpt here), we meet five-year old Lily, who lives in upstate New York and who is learning to deal with lots of new things. She gets a new baby brother (although she really would like to have a sister!), she begins going to school for the first time, she has to learn to deal with having a girl at school who is pretty mean to her, and to others. She also loses her much-loved teacher, after she (the teacher) is badly injured in an accident, and then she and the other students must deal with a new, mean teacher. Because of the way the new teacher treats the students, she is not asked back, and the students end up home-schooling the following year while waiting to find a new teacher for their school. Lily also turns six during this time.

My boys were surprised to find out in the story that Amish children generally go to school only through the eight grade. A lot of other things surprised them, like having no electricity, no cars, etc. They kept saying it was “the olden days”, and having to be reminded that it really wasn’t, that the Amish live this way now.

Toward the end of book one, “Life with Lily“, Lily has yet another difficult thing to deal with, her family decides to move to another Amish community in Pennsylvania. Now Lily has to watch many of their belongings be auctioned off before the big move, which struck a chord with me, and with my boys, remembering less than a year ago when my husband’s job caused us to have to move 1700 miles from everything and everyone we’d ever known. My boys pointed out that it was like when I was sorting through deciding what to put into our moving sale, how hard that was.

In book two, “A New Home for Lily” (an excerpt is available here), we see the family move into their new home, a place Lily really, really dislikes. She doesn’t like the color of the house, or the kitchen counter. She learns that different Amish communities have different rules about dress (Lily’s mother must make all new clothes for them, and new head coverings for both herself and Lily), about technology (here, they are not allowed to have the refrigerator (which is not electric) kept in the kitchen, so they must put theirs on the porch. And Lily discovers that no matter where you go, there will still be disagreeable people to deal with, when she meets yet another mean girl in school.

This book carries us all the way through when Lily is promoted to the fourth grade. In this school, she once again has a teacher she can love, and makes new friends. She and her brothers do continue to get into mischief, though, and she also gains yet another baby brother.

I very much enjoy the writing in these books, it is so descriptive! A favorite sentence is toward the end of the second book, “A New Home for Lily” . . .

“The sun went down and darkness crept over the land like a big velvety blanket that was coming to tuck everything in for the night”

These stories are just full of descriptive writing like that!

There are two additional books planned for this series, “A Big Year for Lily” (read an excerpt here), due to be released in July, 2013, and in September 2013, book four, “A Surprise for Lily“, for which there is no excerpt available as yet.

I have already had to promise my kids that we’ll order the next two books, so that they can find out what else happens to Lily, and her brothers Joseph, Dannie and Paul! 🙂

The books are available for purchase at the cost of $12.99, which is a very fair price. These are not little, thin picture books. “Life with Lily” has 280 pages, and 39 short, easy to read chapters. “A New Home for Lily” is 266 pages, with 36 chapters. In both books, each chapter can stand alone as a self-contained story from Mary Ann Kinsinger’s childhood.

To read more reviews of The Adventures of Lily Lapp, please click below!

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June 4, 2013 · 9:14 pm

Annual Church Homeschool group Picnic . . .

I rested with my feet up all day so I could go with the family for the annual home school group picnic. Was lots of fun, good food, and the kids got in a lot of play time, but my poor feet are definitely done in for the night. We are home now, and my feet are properly elevated, but they still hurt some, so I think they will be resting up a lot tomorrow, too. They were sort of elevated at the park, but now I am on the couch with two pillows under my feet.They do hurt quite a bit, but I’m still glad we got to go. 🙂

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April 30, 2013 · 2:08 pm

Home School in the Woods . . . a TOS Review

My kids have enjoyed learning with lapbooks ever since we discovered them several years ago, so when I got the chance to review a lapbook package from Home School in the Woods, I grabbed for it!

Home School in the Woods has long been well-known for their Timeline figure sets, Timeline Notebook and Olde World Style Map Sets, but I have to say that judging by the one we got for our review, they have also really hit the mark with “ready to go” lapbooking! Amy Pak and her family do live in the woods, and because she didn’t care for the thought of teaching history, she decided to use timelines. Eventually falling in love with the topic, she began to create timeline figures that are realistic. You can read more about Amy Pak and her family here.

We had to choose between:

Hands-on History Lap-Pak: The 20th Century in America

Great Empires

and

Hands-on History Activity Pak: Composers

I decided that I really wanted to focus on American History with this one, so we chose to request the Hands-on History Lap Pak: The 20th Century in America.

Because I thought it might be beyond the capabilities of my other three children at this time, I decided to have “The Artist” be the student this time around, deciding with him that he could “do” the Lap-Pak projects and create the lapbook, and we would, at a later time, use his finished product as an educational tool for everyone. Once he got started doing the projects, he decided that they were a lot of fun, and he was learning cool, creative things (like learning how to make a pop-up card because of one of the first few projects), and really went with it, with MUCH more enthusiasm than I’ve seen for other educational endeavors. 🙂

For this review, I received the Hand-on History Lap-Pak: The 20th Century in America as a download product. In my download were files for the following:

Booklet directions
Introduction and lists of additional resources that can be added for deeper study
Project assembly directions
Lapbook assembly directions
Reading text pages, to either print as a booklet or on 8 1/2 x 11 paper for a notebook
Lapbook project masters

The download version of Hands-on History: The 20th Century in America is available for $21.95, or you can purchase it on a CD for $22.95. Since I personally am not skilled in the art of waiting (my personal motto appears to be “instant gratification takes too long”), if I were purchasing this or any other downloadable vs. CD product for our home-schooling, I would most likely always choose the downloadable version. 🙂

This download gives you a very complete unit study, which touches on so very many important historical events, movements, topics, and/or people. You can use the lists of additional resources, and take a much longer time with this unit by “digging deeper” into each subject, or you can do the entire thing “as is”, because everything, and I do mean everything, that you need is included.

Here is our “project center”, all printed out and kept neatly in a three-ring binder and in the actual file folder we would ultimately use for the lapbook, until each page was needed (the only “extra” in the photo is the colorful booklet tucked into the binder pocket. This is a list of the missionaries supported by our church, because we decided to use it for the Modern Missionaries project) . . .

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“The Artist” really enjoyed the “putting together” aspect of the projects, but often needed to be reminded to read the text first, and then to go back to the text for his research, so he would know what sort of information to write into each project. In fact, we discovered while assembling the final lapbook that he had completely skipped reading the text and writing information into the project on music, so after completely finishing the assembly, he went back and read that portion of the text, and wrote in the information needed. 🙂

Here are some photos of “The Artist” working on individual projects for the lapbook . . .

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And here is a photo of the completed individual projects, waiting to be put into the assembled lapbook . . .

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Really, we liked all of the individual projects, although he had a problem with the project for “Slang Terminology”, because the pocket as printed out and assembled was not large enough to hold all of the printed cards and still be able to be adhered to the lapbook. “The Artist” worked around that by making a separate backing out of the same color of cardstock, so that there would be something to adhere! The only other issue in my opinion, was with the Modern Missionaries project. It is a beautiful little booklet when completed, but it is really beginning to bother me more and more that Christian home education companies seem to be completely disregarding the use of the 1611 King James Version of the Bible when there are Bible verses used. I’m usually having to measure the area and print out the KJV version, hoping that it won’t look like a bad patch job (which, of course, it usually does). I realize that the King James Version has fallen out of favor in a lot of circles, but there are still an awful lot of us who use it exclusively, and would appreciate having it included as an alternative option in the print outs. Other than these two things, we are VERY pleased with this lapbook, both the building of it and the completed product! “The Artist” is excited about the plan to use it later on as an educational tool, adding in the resources for “digging deeper”, and learning as much as we can from it. 🙂

Here are photos of “The Artist” proudly showing off his completed Lap-Pak . . .

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Didn’t he do a great job? After discussing it further, we’ve decided we might like to also do the Hands-on History Activity Pak: Composers, and eventually the Great Empires, because “The Artist” so enjoyed putting together the Hands-on History Lap-Pak: The 20th Century in America.

We enjoyed this product, and I think you might, as well!

To see what other Schoolhouse Review Crew members thought of this and other products from Home School in the Woods, please click below . . .

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April 17, 2013 · 3:00 pm

“O” is For . . .

Overwhelmed . . . which I really am, today. I was supposed to make a casserole for our church supper tonight, and a cake for the dessert, as this is the final night of our Biblical Music Conference, with our special speaker being Pastor Steve Foster, at Mesa Baptist Church. Well, I used a recipe from cooks.com, I followed it, even though I had misgivings about the amount of baking soda it called for, and it sort of exploded and overflowed the baking pan into the oven. 😦 I’ve spent considerable time working on getting the mess out of the oven, in the hopes that there won’t be enough of it burning in there to ruin the taste of the casserole I still intend to make for the potluck.

Last night I sang the special during the conference, so several times today I have watched the video of my singing, just to remind myself of the words in the song I used. It was helpful in calming my spirit somewhat. Sometimes, I just need the reminder, especially on overwhelming days . . .

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April 16, 2013 · 2:39 pm

“N” is For . . .

Number! As in the huge number of things going on around here this week! First, we have the Biblical Music Conference at our church, which began this past Sunday morning, and concludes tomorrow evening. It has been FANTASTIC so far . . . please, go here to listen to what we’ve been learning about!

Tonight, I am singing the special before the message, so I will not be eating the meal beforehand, as the menu tonight is green chili cheese burgers and hot dogs. I’m far enough out from my gastric bypass that I can handle a cheeseburger most of the time, but I just know that if I try it on a night I have to sing, I WILL get sick, so I’m just not taking the chance.

For the meals being served before the evening sessions, I’ve been making desserts. Last night I made cherry/chocolate cake, and today I made my “Totally Bad For You” (aka chocolate/peanut butter) cake. Tomorrow I’m making pineapple upside down cake, plus a casserole for the potluck.

Then Thursday is the beginning of our state homeschooling convention, and I will be attending that Thursday afternoon, all day Friday, and then Saturday morning.

Thursday morning, before going to convention, I need to go to Maurice’s in the mall to return a dress that my husband didn’t approve of, stop at Barnes and Noble to pick up a book for “The Batman”, along with finding birthday gifts for “Mr. Loquacious” and “The Puzzler”, and get to the convention. And get lunch in there somewhere.

I need to finish writing a review of an e-book my kids just finished as a read aloud, and get that posted.

And then, there is the never-ending Mount Wash-more . . .

So I have a NUMBER of things going on this week!

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April 15, 2013 · 2:16 pm

“M” Is For . . .

Music, music, music! This week, beginning yesterday morning, our church is having a Biblical Music Conference. We will be having special meetings tonight, tomorrow night, and Wednesday night, all at 7:00 p.m., and will have supper served beforehand, at 6:00 p.m. Our speaker is Pastor Steve Foster, who has come with his wife and some of his children (some are away at college), and is teaching us so much biblical truth about music, and what the Bible says about music, how it is to be used in the House of God, what kind of music is really wrong, Biblically, and why. We are learning so much!

The church is providing the meals tonight and tomorrow, with Wednesday being potluck. Today, I am making home-made chocolate/cherry cake for the supper. Tomorrow, I will make my “Totally Bad For You” cake with frosting, plus I am singing the special tomorrow evening. And I have a casserole to make for the potluck on Wednesday, one that I sort of made up last week out of stuff we had on hand, and everyone really enjoyed, plus a pineapple upside down cake.

I wish you all could be here, so I could invite you to come to the meetings, because it is amazing, the things most of us really do not know about music, and how the Bible applies to what we choose to do with it! The messages are being put on the church’s website, with all the sermons, in fact the first three of them are already there! So, if you are at all interested, please do go there and listen, and learn! 🙂

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