Bringing Good Home

It seems that Thursday Thirteen is coming to an end. There’s a possibility of it coming back or of some people still continuing to do it, but for the most part this is the last one. I actually planned on doing a first ever for me Thankful Thursday theme today, but in light of this news I thought I would combine the two and do a Thankful Thursday Thirteen. (There I go breaking the rules again.)

Since I just recently posted 3 things I am thankful for and since that included God, my family, and my church…I’ll just pick up where that list left off.

1.) I am thankful for my little bible. It’s the perfect size to carry around with me everywhere I go and the cover is beautiful.

2.) I am thankful for a so-far flu-less flu season. (Which is compliments of God’s protection only- no flu shots for us this year.)

3.) I am thankful for shelter over my head and good landlords, forgiving landlords.

4.) I am thankful for warmer weather. Read the rest of this entry »

Thirteen random thoughts from my brain on this random thought kind of day…

1.) Yesterday was nice weather. I was feeling much better, too. So I had the windows open, the radio on, and the kids and I cleaned the house. It’s true that you feel better when you get a lot accomplished. Today it is cold again and the sun has been having trouble breaking free from the gloomy clouds. Kinda like me, struggling with the clouds of crankiness today. I wish the nice weather would have lasted a little longer.

2.) There’s a wall paper border that I put in the bathroom when we moved in, the wet-and-stick kind. It’s peeling off at the edges (which of course is bothering me) and I saved the left overs (I have enough to do it again–and yeah, I’d rather take it off and do it all again than have the peeling edges) but since this is the first time I’ve ever used it or had to take it off, I’m wondering…. How do I get it off?…

3.) Why is it that when you begin to lose silverware, you seem to lose one kind of utensil?? And is it just me or does it usually seem to be spoons? Like the spoons got together and started a union and went on a great spoon strike. I’m tired of rewashing spoons so frequently. Keep an eye on your spoons, I think I overheard them planning to take the strike nation-wide.

4.) Okay, so I just scheduled Baby Boy’s first hair cut so Big Daddy won’t cut another piece off. Yes, it’s true, he cut a lock from above his ear because he knew that if I could see the missing piece it would bother me and I’d cut the rest of it. What a stinker! (Actually I couldn’t even tell where he cut if from…but he really does need a haircut, it’s in his eyes.)

5.) The other day I realized I still have a Christmas tree hiding in my house…fully decorated, still set up, not taken down yet. How does a Christmas tree hide in your house?? you may ask. Well, it’s the little purple one set up in the play room. Kinda blocked it out and completely forgot about it. My temporary purple-tree-amnesia. So I guess I oughta take it down and pack it away, huh?

6.) Do you know that my house is a good metaphor for the spiritual heart? Yeah, it is. See, my house is old, falling apart, it’s dilapidated and not very pretty. Most people don’t notice most of it when they come over, some things are obvious but there are many things that you wouldn’t notice unless you sat here staring at it all day like I do. Now… I could slap on a fresh coat of paint - the walls, the cabinets - it would give my whole house a face lift. It would make everything look new… but it wouldn’t really be new. I would still know that underneath the fresh paint is a rotting frame. In the same way, we can slap a Christian attitude on, walk around with a smile on our face, do good deeds, attend church regularly and no one would be wiser. Except you and God of course. It doesn’t matter what you slap on the exterior, it’s what inside that really counts.

7.) Even though it doesn’t fix anything, I really want to paint the walls in my house. I think I might actually try to do that soon. Which room first, which room first….

8.) It’s Thursday again which means my brother-in-law and his wife are coming over again - YAY!! I really look forward to those.

9.) I have a really cool blessing which happened this week, but I’m not telling until tomorrow. (Neener, neener, neener!)

10.) My baby boy screams like a girl. His sister taught him. I really wish she hadn’t done that.

11.) My favorite flowers are sunflowers, tulips, calla lilies, indian paintbrushes…but of course, I’ll always accept roses or anything else for that matter. What girl would turn down flowers? (Actually, I can’t tolerate Easter Lilies though I think they are very beautful. I am highly allergic to them, go figure.)

12.) My six year has finally started staying in her bed all night - YAY! Woo-hoo! Hallelujah!! She still sometimes wanders into our room, but for many nights in a row now she has stayed in her bed all night long. See…bribery works.

13.) Did I mention I’m looking forward to dinner tonight? Oh, I did. Well I am! I am making pasta lasagna which is really good and maybe, if everybody is willing, I might get everybody to help me move the babies crib and trade it with the dresser in the playroom. Yeah, we’re switching back, at least for a little while. But that’s another post.

Happy Thursday everybody! The weekend is right around the corner! For more Thursday Thirteen go check out Two Moms In a Blog.

For the past couple of weeks I have been noodling a post in my brain about my goals in blogging. It all started back in October when I read these posts on Worship Matters by Bob Kauflin. Those posts weren’t the whole reason but at least part of the reason why I started my new blog on WordPress in November. The old blog wasn’t bad…but I wasn’t sure what my goals were with the other blog and I wanted a fresh start. Then a few weeks ago, I remember reading someone else’s blog about who they were and what they wanted their blog to be all about. I didn’t save it unfortunately, but it got me thinking. And then if that wasn’t enough, my own pastor did a few posts on what his goals were and also about a few of the dangers and pitfalls of blogging that we must avoid. So now with my wheels really spinning, I really wanted to put something into words. So in an attempt to come across as light-hearted as possible, I’m listing “13 Things I Try To Do When Blogging…” (I think I can come up with that many!)

Besides, the idea behind Thursday Thirteen is to provide a way to share and get to know your fellow bloggers, so what better way to get to know me than to find out why I blog?.

Thirteen Things I Try To Do When Blogging…

1. Glorify God! This is something I try to do all the time, in every thing I do. I don’t want to do any less just because I am shielded by anonymity and a computer screen. While I do participate in some fun weekly carnivals, etc, I pray that overall my blog speaks of God and his glory.
2. Be real. This is something I struggle with, (but only because I must decide the level of information I want to put out on the internet - more about this later. ) I just hope that I come across as sincere and real and that my love for Christ rings true and not as a false front.
3. Be considerate. When I blog I do not rant, accuse, lay blame (except on myself, perhaps), or bash anybody or anything. At least, I don’t think I have. If I have wronged you, please forgive me. When I read things I disagree with, I do not leave nasty comments. If I do leave a comment on something I disagree with, I use nice manners. Being rude isn’t what I want people to remember me for.
4. Be reciprocal. When someone leaves me a comment, I try to at least check out their site for the day and if I have something to comment on one of thier posts about, leave a comment and a thank you.
5. Not leave empty comments. I try not to leave comments for comments’ sake. I admit I have just left something simple or polite (“I like that!” or “Good idea!”) when I really wanted to leave a comment to show that I stopped by for a visit after they were kind enough to pay me a visit. Lately I’ve changed that to “I like that! Thanks for stopping by my blog!” I think that’s better. But my point is that I don’t want to just randomly go blog-surfing and leave a comment on anything just to have left one and garner more traffic my way. Fake comments are just that - fake. And that’s not the kind of witness I want to have, ya know?
6. Not get caught up in statistics. The hit counter is… well, it can be a bit addictive. It’s fun to watch the numbers go up, see who left a comment, and read what they had to say. And that’s fine, I think - as long as it’s just a fun thing for when I sign in. As long as I’m not checking back every hour to see if somebody commented on my post yet or see if I’ve had over X number of hits for the day. Which, since I am home all day would be easy for me to do. I avoid getting caught up in it by putting it last. I get up in the morning, start the coffee, sit down to read my bible and pray (ideally, that is…been doing pretty good with that lately) then if the kids are still asleep I can check my email, read my blog feeds and then check my comments and stats last before getting the kids up and starting breakfast. Ideally.
7. Not participating in everything. There are sooo many blogrings and carnivals and daily whatevers…you could spend your whole day online and not get into all of it! I do participate in a few fun things. I always participate in Menu Plan Monday, because it kinda keeps me on track with planning a menu for the week before I go grocery shopping and that’s a good thing. I sometimes do Tackle-It-Tuesday, Works-For-Me-Wednesday, or Thursday Thirteen, but I try not to do them all every week. While I do want to participate in these fun things sometimes, it takes time to write and perfect the posts and get the pictures in, etc., and there are other things that I want to blog about. If I spent all that time, I would not be spending enough time with my family and on my home. In fact, I often have things I want to talk about that I never get to. However, I must keep my priorities straight, mustn’t I?
8. Keep an eye on the clock. This is where I really struggle. Time gets away so quickly and even if I’m not participating in all the stuff, it’s still too easy to spend too much time on the net. I try to set certain blocks of time that I can blog - provided it works out and I have something to blog about. I typically check my blog when I check my email in the morning, but don’t get on to do anything to it until after breakfast. Now that I am waiting to start schooling until 10:30 when the baby is napping, I let them have a little free play time until then and I get free play time on the internet. Then I try not to get back on again (at least not for more than a minute or two) until after they are in bed. Um… I’m not always good at sticking to it, though. But I try.
9. Be honest. That should be self explanatory enough. If I say “I went to church last night,” I really did. I’m not gonna make stuff up just to have something to blog about.
10. Be discreet. Ooh, a difficult line to walk. There are a ton of things I’d like to blog about but haven’t found the right balance. Since I don’t want to rant, or ‘diss’ anybody, then I can’t go off about “my hubby or my kid did ‘XYZ’ today.” I think it is bad form to badmouth my spouse and to do so to the entire world would, well, bad form on a world-wide level. Sure, blogging about leaning on God when hubby is having a bad day (for example) might be a good topic and one that others might glean encouragement from, but if I don’t know how well I can walk the line of discretion and encouragement, well, then it might be best to err on the side of discretion.
11. Not posting for the sake of posting. Okay, that’s similar to the point about the comments, but even more appropriate. If I don’t have anything good to say, well, then maybe I shouldn’t.
12. Provide good information. One of the reasons behind my blog is to find, collect, and talk about things that are good for my family - ways to improve our menu, get the most of our budget, keep a cleaner household, live a healthier lifestyle, lean more on God. You get the point. I want to stay true to that. It kinda goes with the “don’t rant” issue, but I want what I am bringing to my blog to be something good. Something useful. Something helpful. I want to be a provider of good information. Hopefully, I’ve held to that pretty well so far.
13. Above all else, be a good witness. Yeah, yeah. It’s not unlike “#1 - Glorify God.” But I like it when things come full circle. By glorifying God, not ranting, being real and considerate and reciprocal, by not leaving empty (fake) comments, or letting statistics be my goal, by not over-participating or spending TOO much time on my blog but taking good care of my family instead, by being honest and discreet, by not posting pointless posts but providing good information, I want to be a good witness to those who find me here. I want to be an arrow pointing people back to God. I realize that may not be evident in the middle of a kitchen cleaning tip, but I hope that as people read through my blog they can see a unifying theme to what I have to say. (In case I haven’t said it - God is good. He is all we need. )

Well, that’s all for now. Today I am linking to TWO Thursday Thirteen lists. (Is that allowed?) I used to link to Chaotic Home, but when she was in the middle of moving, I listed with Two Moms In A Blog. Now CH is back this week and I’m loyalty-torn! So check them both out.

My Thursday Thirteen is a montage of sorts from what has happened around our house this week. (In no particular order….)

1.) Snow! We got somewhere between one and two inches yesterday. Considering we usually get snow here once a winter and that it rarely sticks, I’d say that’s pretty good! We went outside and tried to build a snowman but the snow was too dry and fluffy to stick together. I did snap a quick pic of the kids outside though.

2.) Somebody please tell me how I am supposed to load the dishwasher like this:

3.) Or like this:

I’ve resorted to loading and unloading the dishwasher when he is napping.

4.) Baby Boy has figured out how to pull out the dining room chairs and climb on top of the table. Again. And Again. And again. He even fell off once because he was trying to get away from me as I came to get him down. I barely caught him. He gets up there and it ends up looking like this (or worse if one of the girls leave a drink up there):

5.) So now my table often looks like this:

6.) He also learned how to climb up to the top bunk bed this week. And bounce on the mattress. Oh yeah. He did. … He’s thirteen months!! (Oh, man, he’s gonna keep me busy.)

7.) Here’s the psalm that spoke to me this morning:

8.) Here’s an excerpt from my favorite psalm, which I also read this morning:

9.) We went back outside today as the snow started to melt to try again at making a snowman. We succeeded by scooping up all the wet snow on the porch and fashioning it into this sad, Texas snowman. Princess style of course. (Don’t ask why she added a hula skirt… I’m not sure.)

10.) The sometimes-inside kitty that adopted us a month ago, became a basically inside kitty with the onset of the colder weather. Fortunately for me, she meows at the back door every time she needs to go out. How cool is that?

11.) The girls started dance last week (Thanks to my mother-in-law! Thank you!) but snow and ice this week has kept us home, and in house, with no exercise, or friends. Can we say “share the love”? (Don’t worry, they’ll make them up next week.)

First day of dance.

12.) This morning while I was trying to read and pray: the girls turned the tv up real loud, one or the other of them asked me for a drink a total of four times, they fought (and screamed) over a coloring book, the baby climbed on the table twice (before I put the chairs up) and he tried to stick something into the space heater!! (But fortunately he was caught and not injured.) And that was just 15 minutes of our day!

13. We don’t have anything else on the schedule until Sunday so we may try to go play with some friends tomorrow!

13.) I’m looking forward to my brother-in-law and his wife coming over for dinner tonight. Friendly faces. Conversation. CSI!

14.) After all our snowy adentures yesterday and today, I remembered why we stayed in last time it snowed. The kids whine so much during the process of getting swaddled and getting cold outside, and the poor baby won’t keep his gloves on and Drama Queen is scared to death the whole time that the neighbors dog will come over and jump on her, and… it’s just much more peaceful to stay in and look at the snow through the window. The things we do for love, though, right?

15.) Psalm 118:24 This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it!

Thursday Thirteen is hosted this week by Two Moms in A Blog. I just recently found this blog and I’m really enjoying it so far. Hop on over!

Chaotic Mom over at Chaotic Home usually hosts a Thursday Thirteen.

And although she’s out this week and there’s not one or a Mr. Linky on her page, I’m going to do one anyway! =)

My list is THIRTEEN THINGS TO DO TODAY. Yup! Big Daddy comes home from his trip to Sacramento tomorrow, and I want the house and kids to be clean and welcoming and inviting. I want there to be food in the pantry and the bills paid and the trash taken out. You get the idea. Now, I’m a list maker anyway, and I love to check my list and mark things off as I get them done. So, here’s my first ever Thursday Thirteen! (I’m considering logging back in occasionally to mark them off, too!

1. Devotions with kids
2. Exercise
3. Grocery Shopping
4. Get the new carseat from mom’s house (YAY!), install it, and borrow mom’s camera (didn’t get the camera, dad wasn’t home and I didn’t know where it was.) But I did check the mail.
5. Take ‘before’ picture of the baby’s bedroom (will have to wait until hubby get home with the camera tomorrow. But that’s okay, I made up for #5 with an impromptu oil change while I was in town.
6. School
7. Clean up the kitchen, take out the trash
8. Clean up the living room
9. Clean the two bathrooms (toilets and everything)
10. Clean the girls bedroom floor
11. Pick up our bedroom, new sheets on bed, new towels in bathroom, etc
12. Laundry (4 loads) 2 loads washed, 2 to go
    
13. Give the kids their baths
    

Whew! That’s my list! Think I can get it all done? By the grace of God,…by the grace of God.

Have a great and very blessed day! I’m off to start my day!!

Proverbs 16:9 The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps.

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Well, I got most of my work done. I could have tried a little harder, but oh well. Sad news, though. Big Daddy won’t be coming home tomorrow. He won’t be coming back until Saturday or Sunday.

On the brightside, I can get more cleaning done.