We need a little Christmas. . . . .

I haven't felt a whole lot of Christmas cheer.....it has been a really hard month...loss has just touched the lives of so many people around us....

This week, a mother had to bury 3 of her 10 children.....suddenly and tragically killed in a car accident....the twin boys were on their way to pay for their Christmas tree....

A sweet friend is facing a long year in the treatment of an aggressive bone cancer in her son.....treatment begins this weekend....

This young man was a student of mine and an idol to my 9 year old drummer who wants to be just like Ethan...

A former member of our youth group lost her husband tragically in a car accident....she is left with a 2 year old son and a baby on the way....

My children have been deeply affected by all of this loss and grief.....

I'll find my middle son suddenly by my side....saddled up to me just needing reassurance....

My first-born....ever practical and conscientious has been asking questions like....."Is our car safe in a car accident.....How do you get cancer?  Can I?"

There have been so many questions.....many centered around..."Why would God let this happen?"....."Why are there so many bad things happening?"

I don't have any perfect answers.....the truth is....grief and loss can easily touch our lives, too......we are not immune....

As I was driving the other night, I was just struck by the fact that while I don't feel like celebrating Christmas.....isn't this what Christmas is all about??

Our world is broken......it didn't start broken....God wanted it to be perfect without pain, loss.....sin....but man chose differently.....so God had to develop another plan.....His plan to fix our pain, loss, grief and brokenness from sin ended on the cross, but it started in the manger.....

In a somewhat unknown town.....born to a teenage mother......an infant child came to make a way for us to leave this broken earth and enter a perfect Heaven to live forever with a God who loves us....

It's not about how many cookies I haven't made or presents that aren't bought yet or the Christmas projects that are sitting unfinished.....it's about the hope of redemption that this baby brought.....hope that a Mom will one day be reunited with those three children and wrap her arms around them once more.......

Merry Christmas....

Read more ...

Friday afternoons. . . .

My home used to be a place where there would always be a Lego creation or battle set up in a corner somewhere.....not so much anymore...

Now I have these "crazies" hanging around in the corners of my house......

Yep....that's my son giving me his "I'm a rock-star-drummer" pose!

Friday afternoons have become "music central" at our home and truthfully, I love it, the pounding drums, strumming guitar....I love the noise in my house!


Early in our marriage....probably even before we had children....my husband and I decided to make our home a place where kids would want to hang out....


We knew that meant that as our kids got older, we would need to build, create, and imagine things to attract the friends of our children to our home....we needed to "create the noise" so to speak....


I deeply value time spent with my kids.  While I knew that once I got passed the "baby" stage...you know, the up-at-night-potty-training-puke-on-your-shirt phase......that time would move quicker.....I just had no idea how fast it would actually move!


So as we are rapidly approaching the teen years, I know that means stocking up on Doritos's, Oreo's and electric guitar amps......staying current with my itunes account.....and potentially buying a set of ear plugs!


It also means that I have a whole lot more of this lying around instead of slip-covered shabby chic chairs and burlap covered candles.....

How do you make your home a "kids hang-out"?

Read more ...

Barbie has a tattoo??

I remember my first Barbie doll.....she had a hot pink "evening" dress, a metallic star ring and you could style her hair......she definitely did not sport a tattoo....

Hmm....that's some curious looking art peeking out from her top.

Yes....tattooed Barbie is the most recent controversy of this pre-holiday shopping season....people are discussing it over at NBC TODAYMoms with almost 81% of the respondents feeling that she's "tacky and inappropriate."


Quite honestly, I am a little shocked by the outrage over Barbie's tattoo....especially after the Barbie outfits that my daughter received for Christmas last year for her non-tattooed doll. (They were similar to these, but not exact!)

{Source}

My daughter's response to the outfit...."Mommy, why is Barbie wearing a bikini with her skirt?"

Me:  "No honey, I think that those are her clothes!"

Daughter:  "But those look like her jammies!"

Me:  "Hmm....yes, they do..."

To be honest, I doubt that my daughter would be influenced to run out at the age of 6, 7, 8, 9, or even 10 and secretly get tattooed......but I do think she looks at Barbie's attire and is influenced.....especially when stores are now carrying trashier outfits in younger sizes......


I wonder if The Today Show has ever run a poll about the modesty (or lack of) of Barbie's outfits? Would people even care?

What do you think?

Read more ...

Picture taking in the Poconos. . . .

Our family is on a mini-vacation in the Pocono Mountains.....we are staying at a friend's cabin and in exchange, we are doing some painting for them!  


We had a great day at Rickett's Glen State Park....it has tons of hiking and waterfalls.  The largest one was 94 feet.....it made its own wind!

We are having a blast hiking and I am learning how to use my Nikon D 3100.....


Have you been following any of The Nester's 31 Dayers?  I am following along My 3 Barbarian's 31 Days of Photo Tips....and I am loving them!!


On Day 2 she recommended Bryan Peterson's book Understanding Exposure.  I requested it immediately from my local library and have been devouring it!


Today, I wanted to try taking shots of "cotton candy" water....my only problem....I remembered the tripod, but forgot the attachment for the camera, so some of my photos are way blurrier than they should be.....you must shoot with a tripod!

To achieve the "cotton candy" water look.....you need to shoot at a shutter speed of about 1/2.  In my light, that meant that my f setting was about 22-29.  The slower shutter speed captures the soft flow of the water.


Compare it to this shot, where I had an open aperture ( f 5.6) and a fast shutter speed....

There's so much to learn about taking good pictures that it just makes my head spin....the fun part of this trip....just spending time with these monkeys....

How are you spending your fall?



Thrifty Thursday will be a little later tonight.....look for it around 11 pm EST!

Read more ...

What do YOU do when stressed?

The past few weeks have been trying.....ranging from putting a special pet to sleep, a rabies scare, a flooded basement.....and numerous other things that on their own are not stressful, but when piled together, make me feel anxious....


So what's a girl to do???

....ORGANIZE!!

(Yep! I added shelf paper and sucked all the crumbs out of my drawers!)

For whatever reason, when I have stress in my life, I get compulsive about cleaning, organizing and tidy-ing!

It's like I need to try and restore order to my chaotic life......so I start with my countertops!




Oh....and baskets!  You can't forget baskets!  I put all of my cookie-cutters into baskets!

After my cleaning frenzy, I was enjoying the smell of Clorox lingering in the air and I realized that what I really needed to do was put that same amount of energy into praying......remembering that there is a God who wants to help me through my stress rather than watch me scrubbing countertops....


There is a verse in 2 Corinthians 9 that has been a long-time favorite.......

We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves.

We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair.  We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed. 

{Emphasis mine}

.....I needed that reminder.....

What do you do when you are stressed?

Read more ...

Just 10 minutes......

My friend, Kristi, blogs over at Homeschooling and Other Adventures......she often encourages my heart both in words and in person!  I hope that she encourages yours today......

------------------------------------------------

I am a project person.  I love the sense of

completing monumental tasks of cleaning and

organization and the subsequent chaos control that

they bring to our home.

Reality check...

I have three children who are messy little

creatures and a husband that places his

shoes beside the shoe basket in the entry way (I

love you hunny!)...

...add in some

homeschooling....cooking...laundry...dance

class...baseball practice...gardening...

Projects NEVER get done around here.

As I prayed I asked God to help me with my To-Do

list according to His purpose each day.  When I

actually take time to pray as I'm preparing my

list of things to do, things always go better and

those tasks that remain feel less like failures.

Honestly, I should really add "pray" to the top of

my to-do list for each day...

The overwhelming sense of disorder in my home was

getting to me last May when we finished our school

year.  And I promptly sat down and started making a

list of things that I would accomplish before I

started the new school year....

Then I had an epiphany....(thanks, God!)

I don't have hours of interrupted time to

accomplish Hercules-sized labors...

...but I do have 10 minutes.

Even little one can sit beside me and play quietly

for 10 minutes while I work.

So, I've begun to set the timer and work on a

small task for 10 minutes.  When the time is up, I

am finished (even if my project is undone).  Those

of you who know my first-born, perfection driven

personality probably doubt that I actually left a

project undone...and you were right the first few

times.

Then I learned...

I cannot organize my bedroom closet in ten

minutes...but I can put all the clothing I no

longer wear into a bin for donations...

...in another ten minute segment later that day I

organized my shoes and purses...

...another ten minutes and my hubby's clothes were

re-organized more neatly...

I have followed my 10 minutes rule and have

accomplished quite a lot.

But most importantly, I have learned to cut

projects into manageable chunks so that my

children are a blessing to me instead of

interruptions in my projects.  After all, aren't my

children's tender hearts why I'm home anyway??

---------------------------------

Thanks for sharing today, Kristi!

Read more ...

Cleaning up....

Many times, when I've seen flood pictures on the news, I have thought.....but where does the water come from?


You see pictures of towns....restaurants.....houses under water.....how does it get there?

On Wednesday.....it was raining...alot.....I needed a few things from the store, so I decided to go out before the weather "got too bad".  After turning around a couple of times because of flooded roads, I ended up on this road because at the time, it was a road....

You can't see it now, but there is a bridge past that red light that goes over a creek....a creek!  A few hours later, it turned into this....

These are the main gates at the amusement park Hershey Park...we went through those gates last Thursday.....

....the water source?...a creek...

Our Rita's.....you guessed it...a creek...

I am so grateful for the friends, family and even a stranger-to-us that helped us Wednesday night.....we live on a hill and have never experienced flooding in our house.  My son was nervous about....of all things....the electric guitar in the basement and about 9:30 asked us to check on it.


We had been at our neighbor's house that afternoon helping them because they had already flooded.  I felt like we had made it through the worst part of what would eventually be 15 inches of rain....


I am so grateful for that little voice of my son because water was beginning to come up out of our sump pit and out of our french drains......into our finished basement....


We started making phone calls to friends and family....


Despite the fact that there were no roads into or out of our town, a friend of my dad's brought us.....in the middle of the storm at 10:00 at night in truly torrential rain a sump pump.....I still don't know how he got it here.....but he was an angel to us....


We had two portable sump pumps running.....2 shop vacs and then 1 industrial pump and our basement was saved......who really cares about carpet when a few doors down they are talking about replacing their furnace and water heater....


In the midst of it all.....as we waited for help to arrive...I just remember crying "Jesus please....."  I couldn't even form sentences.....my heart was just crying out....

And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words."  Romans 8:26

...although I must confess that I screamed "OMG" repeatedly at the point when we first turned on the big pump and the suction pulled the hose into the house and was pumping all the water back into our family room....but truly, that was a prayer!


We are still cleaning up.....as are many people.....but in the midst of all of this, I am just very thankful for a God who is still good.....for friends who pulled their pump out of their own home to use in ours......for neighbors who woke their kids to come help us man shop vacs.....for a dad who has amazing friends....for kids who worked their little hearts out......and a hubby who puts up with his nearly (well....fully) hysterical wife!

So now, we've experienced an earthquake, a hurricane and a flood...

Hmm....could that Harold Camping guy be onto something??

Read more ...

The waters are rising.....

Here on the East Coast, we are currently being battered again with rain....

Since I've taken this picture about 2 hours ago, the water is now running just about over the trampoline.....


To give you some perspective, this is usually our view.....

....and now it's this....but higher!

Please pray for us in here Central Pennsylvania....

Read more ...

During a hurricane....

So what does my family do during the end of a hurricane....


Well.....we climb on the shed roof and try to fly homemade kites made with plastic grocery bags and string....

......all while wearing our winter coats.....

What did you do?

Read more ...

The continuation (and conclusion) of the cat saga....

Oh my.....so I ended my last post with God bringing home our sick and missing kitty.  It was quite a joyous celebration....lots of tears of joy....but it was one of those moments where I didn't want to be the dark mommie-cloud of reality saying...."um, guys....the kitty still looks on the the edge of death...."


Really, I am SO grateful that God heard and answered the prayers of my tearful kids...He even went a step beyond and gave my son a special little blessing....


That night, the kitty once again escaped his warm, safe shelter of our laundry room and somehow dragged his sick little body up a flight of stairs.....the cat went right into my son's room....how the cat knew how to find him since it lived outside....I'm giving the credit to God, but my older son awoke to little "meow's"...


As we thought back over the past few days, those were pretty much the only sounds the cat had even made.....so I know that something special happened there for my boy....


The next day.....I called the vet....in my heart, I knew that I was about to dish out a couple hundred dollars for a cat that was either too sick to recover or would end up getting hit by a car the moment it did.....but I wasn't doing it for the cat, I was doing it for these blue eyes that were filled with anxiety and fear for his pet....

So....on the way to the vet, while getting the cat in the carrier, my son got scratched....enough to bleed.....note to self....don't let a sick cat scratch anyone...I've had a HUGE learning curve in the past 24 hours about outdoor pets!


After we ran some blood tests and ruled out things like leukemia, the vet asked if we've had our pets vaccinated against rabies....

"Um...no.  'Cuz you see we rescued these cats from the Amish farm that keeps having cats wander onto our back porch and my soft-hearted children keep adopting and I'm running out of money feeding them all and finding homes for them...we did get them fixed....was that too long of an answer?"


Long story short.....because the cat potentially could have rabies and rabies is prevalent in our area (who knew??)....we would have to keep the cat alive for 10 days.....if the cat lived for 10 days...no rabies....if the cat died for any reason in those 10 days, it would still have to go through rabies testing because it scratched my son....WHAT?!?


Let's just say after a completely emotional ordeal that left everyone, even the vet tech, crying....the cat is now "home with Jesus!"  And YES, we are lying through our teeth and telling our children that the cat is dancing in heaven....don't even judge me, you would do the same!


So after the most expensive "transport" fee ever.....really, did they take the cat in a limo???....the cat was "tested" for rabies.....


Let me just tell you.....if you think that your child has been exposed to rabies...DO NOT GOOGLE IT!!!  I just had to pray to Jesus last night that He would guard my thoughts because I was freaking out!


The good news.....the cat tested negative for rabies.....no trips to the hospital will be necessary.....I am SO grateful!


So now I'm off to get our other outside cat vaccinated.....I had no idea that rabies was even still a threat!  And no...I never read Old Yeller....so I really knew nothing about the disease......until Google....

....after my Google research, I think that I could 

become an activist for mandatory pet vaccinations.....

....Oh and on top of all of that....we had an earthquake today.....while I was at the chiropractor today for my back he asked if I had any extra stress in my life.....I couldn't even answer him! LOL

Read more ...

A wish lantern and an answered prayer.....

It has been an emotional week at our house.....on Monday, I posted on my FB page asking for prayer for a college friend whose son collapsed and died during soccer practice.....a life cut entirely too short by an unknown heart defect.  


My friend Alison of Stuff and Nonsense wrote a beautiful post about it HERE entitled Another Thursday....grab a tissue if you hop over to read it....


Another friend brought her daughter home from the hospital on Thursday, their lives completely changed......what started as a fever has been diagnosed as juvenile arthritis......nothing will be the same.....


In our house, the tears have been flowing today.....our cat that adopted us last winter is sick......in the midst of the "recovery" effort which included taking the deck apart.....he ran away....


At times like this, when life seems so confusing....and so sad....it's easy to start questioning if God cares.....


As I was driving home tonight from a quick trip to our grocery store and just crying about all of these events this week, I was reminded of that verse in John where it is recorded that "Jesus wept...."


He cried, too.....tears also ran down his face and his heart hurt over the death of a close friend......


I drew comfort tonight in the fact that God was hurting tonight, too......His heart is broken by the curse of sin that causes death, pain and suffering.....I imagine that He is anxiously awaiting the day of His return to make things right and new again....


My hubby has had this "wish lantern" sitting around....he needed to test it out for work.......if you've seen the movie Tangled then you know what a wish lantern is.  The town sets them off every year for the lost princess on her birthday.....


We watched Tangled this afternoon so my hubby suggested that we make it our "prayer" lantern......I wept tonight as I saw my baby girl's face streaming with tears and her hands folded while her lips cried out a prayer to God...."Please bring Chloe home...."


I just prayed...."Please reward the faith and hope of my children....."


We waited.....and waited....and no cat....we came in and I put my daughter to bed....still crying....


Then....suddenly, my son came flying up the stairs....they found the cat!


Thank you, Jesus....for caring enough to send our sick cat home.....for hearing the prayers of a little girl....


Truthfully....the cat may still die tonight.......and my friends are still suffering, but in my heart.....and the heart of my kids....they saw a glimpse of God's heart tonight......they felt His care.....

Pain is part of life.....there's no escaping it in a cursed and sinful world...

but I know that HOPE is coming.....

and that God cares when His children are sad....

Read more ...

Trip to IKEA....

I have learned....the hard way......that taking my kids to IKEA is NO fun...for anyone!  

Don't let those smiling faces fool you!  Every step through the store they complained!


The highlight for them???

....bendable lights....sigh!

It was one of those trips where I had a mini-meltdown and grouched the whole way back to the car...."Can't Mommy ever have your full cooperation just ONCE when I am doing something for me?!?  How many times do I have to walk through the Lego aisle at Walmart???"


I think that I then forbade them to speak for the next half hour in the car....YEP!  A mini-mommie-meltdown!

Have you ever had one of those?

Read more ...