Lets Give Them Something to Talk About

Our church is doing a series called “The Blessed Life”.   It is about how you end up living a blessed life by giving your first and your best to God, and then your life is blessed.   By choosing to have a heart for the Lord, even when times are rough and seeing the blessings that God pours out of you.   One of the main things they have been hammering home is that you don’t give your best to have your life be blessed, you do it because your heart is wanting more of God and naturally, His blessings flow from that.   In simpler terms, you do not give to get.   I have had multiple people talk to me this week about marital struggles.   I have seen eyes rolled at husbands and heard of wives being just down right mean to their husbands and yelling at them over phone conversations.   Today is my 10 th wedding anniversary.   YAY!   My husband and I do not see eye to eye on everything, but we try. I can honestly say this is the happiest I have ever been in my marriage and I look forward

Really fast, before I start, MY BOOK IS OUT NOW!!!   The Whisper in the Waterfall is available at these sites: the physical copy here, https://www.createspace.com/4360794 ; and the e-version here, http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DZ1EV42 .   I am very excited about this…   Now onto my thoughts…   There is so much we are not supposed to say to our children anymore.   We can’t call our daughters princesses because it establishes a male dominated society.   We can’t say, “hurry up” to our children because it makes them think that we don’t have time for them.   We can’t tell them that we look fat because they will have a negative body image. We can’t let our kids read certain books, or play with certain toys because we want them to “be themselves”.   We can’t call a paper bag lunch a “brown bag lunch” because it is racist.   We can’t yell at our children in public, even when they are being 100% bad.   We can’t spank our children.   Society is always telling that we can’t do all these t

I will admit it; yesterday I was in a funk.   I was slipping into a “hermit” mood that I get in every so often.   The, I just want to stay home, not talk to anyone but my best friend and my husband and sit and read a book, eat ice cream and not worry about social norms.   It was getting bad.   It was a rainy and stormy day, which contributed to my mood and I was contented to sit and be nasty.   Fortunately, we had a pre-arranged life group scheduled.   Usually our life group meets on Thursdays and not Wednesdays, but we were combining with 2 other life groups.   We were supposed to be meeting at a park.   It had been raining ALL day, a park just didn’t seem like a good idea.   At 4 something, we got the message that instead, we were just going to meet at the church due to the weather.   Feeling a little better about that, we dressed nicely, got in the car and headed out towards church.   2 minutes into our trip we got the call that the weather was “behind” us and we were going to g

I have slacked.   I’ll admit it; I have been LAZY…   The past few weeks I have been avoiding working on my book, not necessarily because I want to, more due to hitting a wall.   My best friend was being a doll and listening to me read the book out loud to ensure I had the cadence right and it was good for me to be able to catch the umpteen type-os still so prevalent in my story.   The first day we hammered it out- we read 50 pages in one day!   I loved sharing my story and she loved hearing it.   We planned to meet the next day to hammer out some more of the book but she ended up getting sick!   Poor thing!   The sickness lasted a whole week and so the book sat, we both just wanted her to get better!   We met on Monday to work through it, but between kids and life, only 10 pages were read.   Last night, Tuesday, we had a plan: I would go over and stick around after a home party she was having and read it after she put the kiddos to bed.   At 12:00pm my headache started…   By 7 (whi

My kids are not in school right now.   It is summer, so they shouldn’t be right?   I find myself thinking that “year-round school” might not be such a terrible idea.   I have become a “No-bot”.                  “Can I have a cupcake for breakfast?”                         “No, we need to eat something more nutritional.”             “Can I watch more TV?”                         “No, you have already watched 4 shows and it is only 9:00am!!”             “Can I paint my sister’s toe nails?” “No- seeing as last time you touched nail polish it ended up all over your face?!?!”             “Can we go swimming?”                         “No, it is pouring down rain!”             “Can we go visit Daddy at work?”                         “No, it is his busy season and we can’t distract him.”             “Can we…”                         “No…” The list goes on and on…   I am feeling like “no” is my general response to anything anymore.   I hate it!   It made me think t

This weekend I am in a friend’s wedding.   I have been working on my Matron of Honor speech and I am pretty pleased with it.   While working through all that, my mind flashed back to one of my favorite all time stories from my marriage.   As it is not part of the speech, I want to share an excerpt from my journal 6 years ago.   Not, to clarify, I rarely journal, so for this to be part of my history it must have been a momentous occasion.             8-20-07             So this weekend was absolutely terrible, but it makes for a great story.   It was our anniversary weekend and we decided to go camping.   Well… it is Friday night and we get to the amp site and we get into our big bag that has all our food in it.   It also has our lighter fluid in it and it leaked!   Almost all our food tastes like lighter fluid.   So I pitched the tent (downhill) and we get ready for bed.   We have all 3 dogs with us (*at this time it was 2 large breed Mutts and a Yorkie ) and we get into bed

Yesterday I went and got my nails done.   I love getting my nails done.   I love the way that they look after they are finished and how I feel like something other than “just mom” after I get them done.   As I was going through my day yesterday before I went to get them done in the evening, I bent one of them completely backwards!   OUCH!!!   For those of you that have ever had fake nails, you know how extremely painful this can be.   The plastic/ acrylic that is on your nails digs into your real nail and leaves quite the mark.   Since I am in a wedding this weekend, I wanted my nails to be perfect and to have a french manicure done to look as elegant as possible, but now I would have this bright red/bruised section in the middle of my middle finger nail.   I went to go and get my nails “filled” in (where they add acrylic to the bottom part that has grown out since you had them done last).   It was very painful having the bottom of the fake nail removed with my freshly injured

This past week my entire family took a trip to Surfside Beach, SC.    After 16 hours in the car with 2 little kids…   we were going to make the trip worthwhile.   We met my parents and sisters and their families there.   IT was great.   The first day, Sunday, was the perfect beach day.   We went out and spent all day on the beach playing and building sand castles.   Monday rolled around and it was overcast and rainy.   The minute we got within 2 hours of the beach, Ripley’s Aquarium had billboards all over advertising their “live mermaid show”.   My girls LOVE mermaids.   My kids are 3 and 5 and have a small obsession with the little mermaid, and any mermaid or fairy show on Netflix.   The girls begged to see a mermaid, so on the yucky day, we loaded up and went over to the Aquarium.   After we waited in line and paid to get in, we asked when the mermaids were coming.   Their response was, “they are only here on Saturdays and Sundays.”   The poor lady at the other end of the ti

I am working on editing my first novel.   I am very excited about publishing it, and very blessed to have someone much better that I am at grammar, who checked it for me.   Reading through it, I loved this part.   Sometimes I forget that God doesn’t want us to be a loogie!   So you are now going to be able to read an excerpt from my book…     Megan and I sat down and took inventory of the night and decided that we needed a girlie night.   We painted our toenails, talked about boys.   We talked about Paul, and a new guy that she met on the plane.   Oh Megan- she believed in Jesus but instead of walking the “straight and narrow” she preferred the wide and easy.   It had been a sensitive topic between us for years.   I would quote scripture to her and she would come back with God is a loving God and His son died for our sins- he died anyway, so why not live it up? The conversation usually went like thi s:   “Well Megs….   If you were to be in a court of law and had to acco

My oldest daughter turns 5 today.   FIVE!   How is that even possible?   Everyone tells you that time flies and to enjoy it when they are young, and I remember telling them that it was dragging by.   There were times that I felt she would never grow up and never really “treasured” the time, even when people told me to time and time again.   I felt like I treasured them, but many times I brushed those times aside.   I am not going to lie; the past 5 years have not been easy.   I have been overworked, lost sleep, sometimes bored out of my mind, adult interaction deprived and driven past a breaking point more times than I choose to admit.   While all that was happening, I also have been blessed beyond belief.   Little things that she and her sister have said and done have impacted my life so much.   Kids change the way that you look at the world.   When I was younger, I went on a mission trip to Mexico while I was in high school.   I came back with my perspective on life completel

This past week I have been reminded how my life used to be.   Full of DRAMA…   At least, I sure thought that it was.   I could make anything and everything dramatic, and I did.   If I didn’t like my job, it was a full out ordeal that EVERYONE had to know about.   If I didn’t like my friends or family, same thing…   If I was extremely busy, or at least what I thought was extremely busy before I had kids, I had to make a huge deal about it.   I guess life hasn’t changed all that much, but my outlook on life has changed and therefore, my life is changed.   Life is always going to throw curve balls at us.   ALWAYS!   There is no way around this idea, it is a truth.   Life isn’t necessarily easy but depending on how we look at it doesn’t have to be stressful and full of drama all the time.   I used to be so stressed out until I realized, guess what – the world doesn’t revolve around me…   A novel concept I assure you.   I used to believe that everything in the world would revolve a

Sitting in the car with my husband while getting the kids situated we witnessed a simple thing.   Two older gentlemen had been sharing a lunch at a fast food establishment, as they left the restaurant, the one gentleman pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket, looked at it and then dropped it on the ground.   The second gentleman looked at him in horror.   The right look is worth 1000 words!   That second man chased down the paper, picked it up and deposited it into the trashcan, where it belongs.   I have no idea the relationship between the two men.   I have no idea what their life stories entail, but this made me think: There are two kinds of people in the world, those that don’t really care about what they leave behind and those that do.   How much easier is it to just toss something to the side that doesn’t seem important to us.   Ignore the reality of a situation.   That was just one piece of trash that man threw on the ground why would that matter?   But if everyone di

Car shopping is always interesting…   My minivan has 150k miles on it so we are looking into purchasing a new to us car.   You give the sales person a price and they always show you vehicles that are just a little above that price.   Then, somehow, you are looking at a new car that is on “sale” and way above our originally state price range.   Sigh…   How often do we do something like that in real life?   We have a plan, a course of values, and then we compromise a little bit, then a little more, and then a little more and soon, our values (or price range) are out the window.   We give a little with our morality, and then the next thing that we know; our original morals are out the window.   The world is like a car sales person, it is okay to do this, it is okay to do that…   For just a little more of this, you can be accepted here or there…   For just a little more compromise, you will get acceptance here or there….   Seeing how good sales people work, it amazes me (the ba

Duct Tape Fairy Wings…   That is right, I am reclaiming my title as the Duct Tape Diva!   It is funny how over board we end up going for birthday parties and celebrations.   The amount of money that people spend on weddings and parties, anniversaries and events that will only last a few hours.   I think I spent around 45 hours preparing my younger daughter’s birthday party and I will be on-course to do the same with my older daughter’s if I do what I am thinking.   What a first world problem.   Much of the rest of the world is just trying to make it to their next birthday and here I am, making a HUGE deal over my daughter’s 5 th .   Society has told us that so much is normal now.   A “cheap” wedding costs at least $10,000, although the average amount spent is ridiculously higher.   People spend so much on a short amount of pleasure.   Society gives us these norms, tells us our birthday parties have to be over the top, that girls’ night is a must and grabbing a drink or having s

Today I am doing something different.  Have you ever seen anyone perform "spoken word"?  Well, this was put on my heart this morning, it is to be read in the format of spoken word, rhytmatic and fun.  I hope you enjoy it. Have you ever stopped to wonder why God made the birds to fly. He made the grass green, And the air to be unseen He made the seasons all, Winter, summer, spring and fall He created each of us unique, Some to work and some to speak He gave us all something sweet, The nails pierced His son’s hands and feet For our sins Jesus suffered and bled A crow of thorns placed upon His head.   He was crucified so I can live, His love He did so freely give. Have you stopped to wonder why, For you, He did die? He said, you don’t have to be ideal, My perfection will live through you with zeal. So, why are we not sharing God’s news? Why are we allowing so many to have the blues? Why don’t we share His promise of a great tomorro

Imagine having nowhere to turn.   No one to look to and no one to go to and no one to turn to when things were rough. Recently a 13-year-old boy felt this way.   He was part of my niece’s class and had a terribly bad day.   He felt hopeless.   He took a gun.   He took the gun and put it to his head and pulled the trigger.   To our knowledge, he has not passed away yet.   We have heard that he passed and also that he did not pass, but is in a coma after surgery.    This past Sunday we heard a message of HOPE given by our Pastor at The Fields Church in Mattoon.   The message was of how Jesus makes hopeless situations and inserts hope into them.   During the sermon, our pastor held up a balloon.   That is our life.   We are hopeless without Christ.   Then, Christ breathes life into us and we inflate.   When we let Christ breathe into our lives, we are able to take the shape that He created us for.   We no longer sit there in a bag or on a shelf, but we become items of Joy.   When C