Lets Give Them Something to Talk About

This past year, I have been learning a lot about balancing the books.  I am blessed with an amazing husband who has always taken care of the financial aspects of or marriage, including me in on important decisions and making things work and helping me to understand; but when you run your own (confidential) business, you have to do it yourself.  I would say I was doing okay, but it is HARD to get the right balance when you aren't used to it.  I have to be very diligent and stay on top of things or I have to go back and try to correct things and remember things.  It is really a challenge.  I am NOT a numbers or math person.   Then I began thinking about life in general, how it is difficult sometimes to manage and balance the times in life that are very busy or more challenging.  How often do we just let things slide and then go back and try to fix them later? During my reading of Isaiah 40 this morning, I was reminded that God is bet...

I have a dog.  He is cute , but he is still a dog.  That means that he is reliant on me.  He likes me no matter what, If I am not around him, he flips out a little and has anxiety.  If others try to claim him or take care of him when I'm not around, he growls and barks at them.  My dog's name is Spike .  He is a Yorkie.  I promised my husband if he got me a girlie dog, I would name it something masculine so he wouldn't have to go outside and yell fru fru when calling our dog.  Spike knows that I take care of him.  He knows that my husband and I are the two that take care of him the most.  The kids try to play with him and he runs to us with the toys.  The kids try to take him out and he only comes back when one of us calls him.  He knows our voice and respects our voice.  He also is needy.  Like he relies on us to take him outside to do his business and to feed him and give him water.  Spike will let us know ...

It is a challenge to live like Jesus.  Jesus was always putting God first.  He sacrificed everything for us!  My 10-year-old daughter is in cheer leading, and, biased opinion, I think she is pretty good at it.  She will never be a flyer, she is built like her mom.  We are sturdy, people that have dense bone structure.  She has devoted considerable amount of time learning to be a base and learning to be the best base that she can be.  She practices 2 nights a week and cheers at the Junior Football League games on Sunday.  I have been VERY impressed with how much their team is doing with stunts and the number of cheers they have learned. While my daughter has been working very hard, she has been in a grouping that she has been used to.  It was her and one other base that learned to work together with their back spotter.  The teams were re-arranged on Monday and the new partner and her did not have their rhythm and my child got hurt....

It is so easy to get lost in every day life.  This is evidenced by the fact that I haven't posted in 4 years...  I have been busy!  My kids are now 9 and 10 years old, I went through grad-school and got a Masters of Science in Clinical Counseling, started my own business, decided to homeschool my children, got a pastoral commissioning, became a Certified Temperament Counselor, and have international students that live in my house, BUT that dose not give me an excuse to not be seeking and following God. Honest moment....  Life is hard... Actually it is mean ...   I have been struggling in so many ways. It is HARD being busy...  It is HARD being a mom and a homeschooling mom at that...  It HARD having the title "pastor" put in front of your name...  It is HARD...  Where ever you are, I am sure there are HARD parts about it as well.  Life is just plain HARD sometimes.  I joke and say, first world problems, but it relates to everyon...

I am in a situation where I have some people that aren’t very fond of me right now.   The more that I try to impress them, the more they seem to dislike me.   I have turned them off to my personality in some way, shape, or form and I have really been struggling with that.   I know that not everyone likes Christians, however, the reason for their dislike does not seem to have anything to do with the fact I am a Christian.   Last night my children had a “sleep over” with each other.   At 3:00am, said sleep over was finished however, both children still wanted to sleep with someone, so for the sake of sanity and sleep, my husband and I divided and conquered.   Around 4am, as I lie there in my daughter’s bed listening to WBGL, the local Christian station, it occurred to me, Jesus WAS, and still is, perfect and guess what, not everyone liked Him.   Some welcomed Jesus, and then one person said something and the crowd turned against Him.   Jesus...

Currently I am in a Diagnostics class for the Counseling Program I am in.   My eyes have been opened to the reality of mental disorders that are out there!   I see diagnoses in many people, including myself.   There is a problem that I see with diagnosing someone with a mild case of anything.   I have seen it happen and I have watched a diagnosis given to someone, take over his or her life.   A diagnosis is an explanation or a generalization so that other medical or counseling professionals are able to assist that individual, they are not given to be an excuse.               “It isn’t my fault I went out and got drunk, I have Alcohol Use Disorder” “It isn’t my fault that I do poorly in school, I have Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder” “Depression runs in my family, so that explains why I am sad all the time.” It is easy to give into a Diagnosis, to agree with it, to see what you have ...

          Well folks, It has been a long while since I last posted.  I could give you plenty of good reasons for me to not have been posting.  1) I am in a majorly intense graduate program that is physically, emotionally and mentally demanding.  2) I am working part time as well as in a practicum to pay for said graduate program.  3) ...  My list could go on and on about why I haven't been blogging and posting but here is the honest truth- I haven't been posting because I haven't been spending time and getting right with God. I used this blog to get right with God a couple times a week before, if not daily.  Now, I haven't even given it a second thought.  How easy is it to get bogged down with life and so busy that we forget what is really important?  How easy is it to say, I will start reading my Bible again, TOMORROW.             I used to think...

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...

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.   ...

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 t...

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 b...

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 fa...

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 pitche...

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 th...

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 ...

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 M...