Inspiring Blogs

Today I would like to take a few minutes and just share with you all some blogs that inspire me to be a more feminine and gracious woman. They also inspire me to be a better housekeeper. To get creative and busy around the home.

To these bloggers I say thank you.

This is not a complete list. There are so many. I set a timer everyday and read through a few. The next day I read through a few more. When I'm done for the day, I feel so refreshed and ready to tackle the rest of my chores or projects.

Ahem, sometimes I do sneak back on at night when the house is quiet and hubby is busy with something else.

For your inspiration and enjoyment here is the first list.

A Gracious Home. Mrs. Sallie is absolutely precious. She is an older first time mom and her wisdom amazes me. I love browsing her blog as it is so pretty and full of great advice.

Trivium Academy. Mrs. Jessica is a 2nd year homeschooling mom who has great ideas. I have stepped away from her blog many times ready to implement new ideas with my children. Her sidebar alone is a wealth of knowledge that I love to explore.

The Sparrow's Nest. Mrs. Wilt is a gentle wife and mother. Her home is beautiful. Her homemaking ideas wonderful. This is definitely a timer blog as I could just get lost in the reading and ideas. Mrs. Wilt herself is just as lovely and feminine as she is sweet. She is definitely on my list of ladies I would like to be like someday.

Rabbit Trails. Mrs. "Bunny" is a homeschooling, preacher's wife. Most of her children are older, a few have even left the bunny home. In a few days I will list her daughter's blog because I am blown away by it, but today belongs to this wonderful, godly woman. She never fails to elicit a chuckle from me, with her thoughts or pictures. She has great advice for raising boys and girls, as she has done and is doing both. In reading her posts I think that she would be a wonderful friend. I love her sense of humor. Her children certainly seem like they enjoy her and she them. I want to be a mom like her someday.

Charming the Birds From the Trees. Mrs. Emma is a true example of femininity. I cant say enough about how inspired I am through this blog. Right now she has a finishing school in progress. She has so much wisdom. Her posts are always gentle and informative. I always seem to sit up straighter and smile more after reading one of her posts.

Well, there is it ladies. The first five inspiring blogs. I'm telling you I have a folder full of them and I seem to always find one more to add.

Set the timer and enjoy.

Inspiring Blogs

Today I just want to take a few minutes and share some blogs with you that inspire me to be more feminine and take better care of my home and family.

This is not a complete list by any means. Im actually thinking about doing this every week. I dont want to say I will but I will definatly try.

An open letter...

I cant stop thinking about high school. Maybe its because my 10 year reunion is right around the corner. I don't know. Anyways, this is my first post about "relationships" I had in HS. Its interesting in that what you are about to read is a little different then what you normally read. But once again this is my journal and I like to look back and see where I was and where I have been. This also helps me to see how blessed I am to be where God has put me and with the man God has given me.
And its really funny. Well to me and to at least a few people who will read this, because they were actually there for most of it. This post will be almost like an inside joke to them. I will expound more later.

Dear people who will be named throughout this letter,

My dear confused best friend in 7th, 8th, and 9th grade Amanda, a chocolate key for Paul, really? Why did you let me do this? Why did you encourage me to call someone and sneak his freshman schedule so I could get, all. the. same. classes? Why did you let me keep those "love" songs in the locker, he asked me to share with him, in hopes he would find them and fall madly in love with me?? Really?

My 10th grade Creative Writing 1 teacher, who I cant even remember your name. A book of poems to be given to the guy I was madly in love with, who might have had a small crush on me, on Valentines day. Seriously? I mean really deep love poems. You wrote on the front page of this assignment, "Good luck". Were you secretly laughing at me?? Did you know this would end with him hightailing it the other way with another girl the very next day? Come on. You were the teacher. You could have stopped me.

Jessica, Jason, Jennifer... anyone who read the acrostic poem I submitted for the poetry book we published in Creative Writing 2. WHY????? WHY???? Did you believe Chuck would not notice his full name written in acrostic declaring my undying love. Seriously? WHAT? Did you all hate me? Not love me? What? "NO he wont notice," you assured me repeatedly. Did you lie to me?

Last but not least. Senior year. You know who. Come on. You could not tell me to back off a bit? Although I will tell all of you doubters at one time you know who and I had a discussion about what would happen after his first year in college when he transferred home, which of course never happened. I was told by you know who that we could not be in a relationship until he came back. I still think at one point he liked me. He and I talked a lot about things that others don't know about.


Love,
Psycho girl.

P.S. I still love everyone who let me blindly walk into my acts of insanity. Except maybe that teacher. I mean she was a teacher for crying out loud.

Apparently, fortunately for my husband who is now the absolute love of my life, I l-o-v-e passionately and blindly. I act on these emotions without thinking a lot. I have toned it down a bit, but not for my man. He never knows what I might have up my sleeve. I have noticed this passion lacking in the past year and I'm going to revive it. I love him 100x more than I loved any of those other guys. Yes, even you know who, who I planned our wedding and all of our children with. LOL. He deserves to be treated just as manically as I treated those other guys I stalked..hmm... I mean loved. ;p.
I firmly believe who we used to be shapes who we are. I was just practicing for the love of my life. My husband.
Another night I will expound on the above relationships. It promises to be a hoot for those who were there to witness the insanity.

P.S. The above letter is humorous. Tongue in cheek. I fully expect comments from Michelle and Jessica declaring that none of this happened and I'm truly psycho. LOL

Book Sale Treasures

I had a great time Saturday at our homeschool used book sale. I got to stand around for about an hour just chit chatting with two of my closest friends. It was a lot of fun. Here are the treasures I found.

My biggest treasure was a brand new set of Saxon 5/4. It has all three books. The first set I found was a little ragged but would do. It was 35.00. I kept looking and found it another one in about the same condition for 30.00. THEN I found one in brand new condition for 20.00. WOOHOO. I was so happy.
Here is the rest of what I got:

Contenders of the Faith booklet for 1.00
Baby Signs 7.00
Ready, Set, Read 1.00
Shepherding a child's heart book and workbook 5.00
Thematic Copywork Lessons Copywork for Boys 2.00
Thematic Copywork Lessons Copywork for Girls 2.00
Art Basics for Children 5.00
2 Sets of the Teaching Home magazine 1990s for 1.00 a set
A Charlotte Mason Companion for 6.00
Literature Pockets Fiction 2.00
Websters New World Children's Dictionary 5.00


Dont you just love a good book sale??

Be Blessed.

One Trip to Walmart....

So my day started out great yesterday. The used book sale, hanging out with two of my good friends, chit chatting, laughing, finding a lot of great books, finding the whole Saxon 5/4 set in great condition, brand new for 20.00 dollars, going to the library later and getting them to reduce a fine I was worried about, hanging out with hubby and the kids. It was a good day. THEN.....

I got my grocery list and headed to Walmart.

Hubby stayed home with the kids, I rolled the windows down, cranked up the music and started my drive. I have three Walmarts to choose from. My second choice is the one closest to us. There are never any lines open and its always packed. My third choice is not really a choice at all as I refuse to go there. Its dirty and the people who work and shop there are just plain rude. My first choice is about 1/2 an hour away. Most of the time if Im not short on time I ride out there. A new plus is they opened an organic supermarket close to my first choice so I can swing in there on my way to or from. I did just that yesterday. I picked up some breakfast bars for Wed mornings and some olive oil. I did not see any local honey so I will still have to either drive across town for that or order from our co op. I found out they are having a grand opening celebration there next week so I will be sure to stop in.

After that I toodled on to Walmart. Peaceful and ready to shop. I had my cash and I had a great list and menu for the next two weeks.

I breeze into Walmart and grab a buggy. The first thing I noticed was that the buggy swayed just a little to the left. It was not too bad so I figured, "I can deal with this." HAHAHA. I breeze past the big girl clothes and see nothing of interest. I halt at the girls clothing and find a GORGEOUS summer dress for Kelsie for 4 dollars. It is an impulse buy but I could swing the money. I head past the preschool/toddler clothes stopping for just a moment to check out the 50 percent off rack. Nothing. Although they had some darling jean dresses for infants/toddlers marked down to 2 and 3 dollars. I made a mental note to tell my friend with a baby girl about to turn 2.

I start my grocery shopping. I cant afford the organic eggs at 3.12 a dozen, so I opt for the free range, no hormone added eggs for 1.12 a dozen. There are only about 5 dozen there and the first three I open are cracked wide open. Not a good sign. I grab the next two and sigh with relief to find they are whole. I run around crossing stuff off the list and writing down prices. I was keeping a running total on the calculator. It looked good. I was way under budget. About halfway through the store my buggy was full

Unruly and Rebellious Children

I was doing my daily Bible reading today and I read something that I have read many times and never really thought about before. It is in Dueteronomy and a lot of Deuteronomy is about sacrifices and other laws that I dont think we can follow in today's world. Not that I dont think it applies to us. I think that God is the same yesterday, today and forever. The God of the old testament is still the God of the new testament. I think we are under a new covenant and dont have to follow the law that was given to the Jews. That being said how serious does God take disciplining our children?

If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them:
Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place;
And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard.
And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear. Dueteronomy 21:18-21

Do I think we should take our rebellious children to the street and stone them? NO! NO! NO!

But I did find it interesting that when the parents could not control the son he was killed so that the evil would be put away.

Can you imagine how this would look today? Does anyone not know at least one family, probably more that have no control over their children?

Now in reading this, I realize that it was probably an older son, but the way I see it the young person did not just become stubborn and rebellious overnight. Also, these parents had come to the end of their rope. They knew what would happen if they took their son before the elders.

Anyways, it just gave me something to think about. We live in a world right now that is so afraid of hurting our children's feelings that we are not disciplining. We are letting them grow to be stubborn and rebellious, glutons and drunkards. All the while we just shake our heads and say, "We did the best we could."

I am reading a great book right now called Boundaries with Kids. Its by Dr. Henry Cloud. I was pleased to see that I was implementing a lot of what he said already, while learning some new stuff, also. See, my husband and I are raising our kids on purpose. We are not of the mind that the kids should raise themselves. While I dont agree with everything in the book, I do agree with the principle surronding it. Make kids take responsibility for their actions and for who they are. I want to expound on this some more in another post. We live in a society where people dont think they should have to be held accountable.

Apparently, God thinks we should.

Anyways, just something I was thinking about.

Be Blessed.

Nothing to write about

I have plenty of ideas, but dont want to put them down in writing yet. I have a draft box full of unfinished posts, but I dont want to finish them, right now. I have some extra time that I should be composing something in writing, but instead I ramble on without saying much.

I have a feeling today is going to be one of those days where nothing gets done. I have my todo list written. I hope I can cross off a least a few things.

The sky is dark outside, a gloomy, rainy, curl up in bed day.

Maybe, I will. *Smile* I doubt the kids would go for that.