Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Well it looks like I'm living up to the once a month post goal. Since our last post we've been busy getting ready for Christmas. One of our traditions is to decorate gingerbread houses. Usually we invite a guest to help us, this year we decorated with the Archer's another family who has the same tradition. It was a great time of exchange ideas, fellowship and lots of sugar. Lisa is the decorating queen as she did three houses in the time it took me to complete my one. The one to the left is the fist one Lisa did.

David made a porch on his to hide the fact that I put the door on upside down.
Bethany used Nerds (a candy the Archer's introduced us to) to make a vine one hers. The candy on her house started disappearing before David took the picture.





Bethany did the make-up for the Scrooge play at our church with Lisa as her assistant. The Lord has blessed me with three renters, that leaves three more vacancies to go.


These are some of the characters she's most proud of. The old men above and Christmas present and past below. They were all great, and the pictures don't do them justice, but I thought Christmas past was most interesting, especially in the dark with the lighting.



















Another blessing is homemade tamales twice, first from our friends and then from on of our tenants. We pray that you and yours will be abundantly blessed this Christmas and in the year to come. If your facing difficulties due to the economy we pray the Lords provision for you and that you'll focus on your many other blessings.

"for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength."
Philippians 4:10b-13

Long over due

Well as you can see it’s been a while since I’ve made a post to my blog. My goal when starting the blog was once a week, which I accomplished in July and almost in Sept. In Oct. I was shooting for twice a month, now I’m hoping for once a month, so I need to hurry and get one in for this month. I’ve actually thought of post on several occasions, but the busyness of life has kept that from happening. So as I’m sitting here in Pahrump, visiting at my dad’s, I’ll use this opportunity to put in an update. Life is moving along at its usual break neck speed. I have one apartment vacant, hopefully I’ll have a renter come Mon. morn. Unfortunately I have three more vacancies coming up in Dec and a forth in Jan. Instead of dreaming of a white Christmas, I’m dreaming of 100% occupancy. Something I haven’t had in over a year and a half.

The election is now over, and no matter how you voted or what you think of the outcome, scripture has some instructions for us.

Titus 3:1-3 says “ Remind the people to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready to do whatever is good, to slander no one, to be peaceable and considerate, and to show true humility toward all men.


1 Peter 2:13-14, 17 tells us to Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every authority instituted among men: whether to the king, as the supreme authority, or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. ….Show proper respect to everyone: Love the brotherhood of believers, fear God, honor the king.


Several years ago, the Lord convicted me that I wasn’t honoring the king, (in our case president), with my commentary or joke regarding him. At the time my children were young and the Lord was impressing on me the importance of my example. I’m sure I still fail at this, but I try to honor Gods authorities. Of late I’ve found this easier to do by not exposing myself to the news etc. Another interesting thing about this scripture reference is that God sometimes uses governors as a punishment.

So as we prepare for Christmas, which is less than a month away I hope we will all pray for the leaders God has placed over us.

Retreat and a movie

DH and I went to see Fireproof on Sunday evening. It was moving and I was in tears by the end. Kirk Cameron’s performance was wonderful, and they dealt with real issues. If your thinking about seeing its worth the money and I’d recommend doing it soon while it’s still in theaters. The movie and dinner with my husband at Rubios, was the end of a wonderful weekend. I went to a woman’s retreat at Murietta Hot Springs, using some of the birthday money my MIL gave me. It was a wonderful time of reconnecting with old acquaintances and friends and getting up early and spending time in prayer and God’s word. I also enjoyed time in the mineral hot springs with some current friends. One of the things I was reminded of, was the importance of praying before reading my Bible and throughout each day. Now I’m praying I’ll be able to apply all that was revealed to me. So far so good, but it’s only been two days.

Since my last post I’ve also finished another Squidoo lens about Operation Christmas Child. The time will sneak up quickly so you may want to start thinking about it now if you plan on doing a shoebox. Until my next post I hope all is well with you and yours.

Fireproof

Today I begin a new decade. I’m no longer in my forties. Actually turning forty was emotionally more difficult for me. I think 50 will be more difficult for my mom; having to say her daughter is 50.

Someone sent me some info. about the movie Fireproof that comes out on Sept. 26th. Seems like it’s worth the expense. Dr. Ted Baehr. founder of Movieguide, said that we can influence our culture and the media, by how we vote. Every time we go to a movie in the theater we are casting a vote. Being frugal we seldom went to movies, choosing to wait until it came out on video. Now we go occasionally, so we’ll have a vote on things we’d like to see more of, coming out of the studios. I hope you’re able to cast a vote for traditional values by seeing this movie.

School in Full Swing and Perfectionism

Well, school is in full swing, and we had our first teacher's meeting for this school year on Tue. I gave the devotion, on something I’ve been pondering for some time now, perfectionism. Something my oldest said to me that made me think was that she thought I was hard on her and her sister, because I was hard on myself.

In preparing for this devotion/study, I ran across six blog entries by Dr. Del Tackett Dr. Del Tackett the teacher for Focus on the Families truth project. Summarizing them into a short devotion, was quite the challenge, and I probably went over a little. Here is a small portion from the blogs, emphasis added, with the links below to the entire thing. I encourage you to take the time to read them, you will be blessed.

“Often when we read the English word “perfect” or “perfection” we may have in mind something entirely different. We may think that “perfection” means “precisely exact” or “purely pure”, without flaw. If so, then I believe we will misunderstand what God is saying to us in the vast majority of these passages. Look at the Greek word “katartizo” translated “perfection” in 2 Corinthians 13:11 (“Aim for perfection”, NIV). Vine defines that word as “to render fit”. That means to “make functional”.

In the realm of salvation and our relationship with God, the standard is pure holiness. Many of the “perfect” passages deal with this. We can’t achieve that, so God did so and does so for us. That is the glory of the Gospel. In the realm of human actions, we are called to act righteously and not sin. But those righteous actions do not carry a standard of “precise exactness”. If I am supposed to be kind to my neighbor, what “precisely” and “exactly” does that mean? Do I begin my conversation with “Good morning, Miss Quigley”, “Hello, Miss Quigley” or “Hi! What’s up?” Scripture doesn’t burden us with “precise exactness” in these things. So, in the social realm, I have Scriptural guidance to be “perfect” in kindness, gentleness, love, respect, etc., but without slavery to some sense of “this is exactly how you should do this or you will be imperfect”.”

10/24/207 First entry
11/19/207 Second entry
11/20/207 Third entry
11/30/207 Fourth entry
12/3/207 Fifth entry
12/5/207 Sixth entry

I ended the summary with some thoughts of my own;

So my encouragement to us in all our areas of life is to seek the Lord, like Mary, and ask him to show use what Martha burdens or burdens of precise exactness WE have incorporated into our lives and to seek His help to let them go. May we all spend time focusing on our relationships with the Lord and others than the stuff in this world that so easily distracts us.

I want to leave you with one last verse that may also be the cause of some of the burdens we place on ourselves, from Proverbs 39:25 NIV
Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD is kept safe.

Here are a few pictures from our trip.

This is where we had the privilege of staying for a week.





Chocolate chip cookies being made while we play games.



Our host's property, and what we took our walks through in the mornings



Photos from Cave of the Winds.





These shots are from the Mining Museum.





The pictures below are from the Molly Kathleen Mine .







The pictures below are from Dragonmans.. If you know David you'll know why he enjoyed this place.







Here are the girls on our friends porch.





This is Glen Eyrie where we had high tea.

Missing Colorado and Starting School

We had a wonderful time in Colorado. The fellowship with and hospitality of our friends was wonderful. Their home and property, where we had the privilege of staying, was beautiful. We watched taekwondo, saw a movie, played in the woods, went to a castle for high tea, shopping, to Cave of the Winds, mining museums and mines, a Military History Museum and out to dinner. We played games, ate choc. chip cookie dough and a few cookies too, stayed up late talking, reconnected and cemented friendships. We had such a good time we still miss it and want to go back. When I can get a hold of some of the pictures, I'll post them.

Even though it's still August, we've start school, by dd's choice. She would rather have a few days as a cushion than start later. Hard to believe it's August already. I've also rented two apartments and will be doing contracts the next two days. I have two more units coming up, I'm hoping after they're rented, I can have 100% occupancy for a while. I'm working on a few homeschooling lenses, check the links in the sidebar.

Colorado Here We Come

Before we talk Colorado, I want to report that DD2 successfully made it to Tennessee and back. She worked in crafts, doing VBS with some inner city kids. She had a good but tiring time, and met lots of new friends from around the US.

It was her first time flying, and this week she'll get to do it again. We're heading to Colorado to stay with some close friends. It will be my second time and DD1's first time. DH flies to often to count. Hopefully when I get back I can post some pictures taken with our new camera. The old one died. Hope you are enjoying your summer, check back next week for an updated post.

Prayer request for the Laurie and Pausch families

In reviewing my previous blogs I noticed my penchant for starting each with “well”. I will have to rectify that for the future. I intended to give you an update of what’s going on here, which includes picking up my youngest from the airport tomorrow as she returns from TN. Instead, I’m going to request prayers for Greg Laurie and his family and Randy Pausch's family as each deals with there great loss.

The links above explain more and her is an article is from the OC Register about Christopher Laurie. Thank you in advance for your ministry of prayer.

Next stop Nashville

Well I survived the CHEA Convention. It was good to hear Gregg Harris and Ken Ham again. As usual I was encouraged, to continue on and while there are areas that need fine tunning, it seems we've done some things right. I also bought three curriculums, and will let you know what I think once we start using them.

Yesterday the girls and I enjoyed the beach with their cousin and sampled Starbucks new mango banana smoothie drink. After that DD1 took her cousin shopping, while DD2 completed her last day of dance camp. Today, DH flew up north for work and I waited in vain for the phone to ring with prospective tenants.

Next stop is Nashville for DD2, she leaves on Sat. to join over 700 others be the hands and feet of Jesus in that city. She will be doing crafts for VBS, the fruit doesn't fall far from the tree. Over 20 years ago I worked at a summer camp in the crafts department.

Well, summer is flying by, hope your enjoying yours. Time to work on some more lenses for Squidoo.

Only 2 days until the CHEA convention

Well it's late, so this won't be long. I was supposed to do other things today, but ended up back at squidoo.com working on my WIDE shoes page. While I have my schedule worked out for the convention, I still need to do more prep, like making a list of the things I want to look at. So, that's a must do for tomorrow.

Other things that went on today, DD's went to the beach, awe summer. DH and I went to a short CERT meeting, then made copies and split a frozen yogurt (choc. malt with Almond Roca topping.) I also worked on Quicken, and did some apartment business.

A Squidoo.com day

Well here I am starting a blog. I’ve read a few, but hadn’t really thought of writing one until I started doing something called Squddio. As my husband often say’s, it been like taking a drink from a fire hose. So far I have two sites at Squiddo.com, In the Beginning and Homeschoolers Unite... But, be fore warned, Squiddo can be addicting, if you decide to start a lens of your own, click the blue "Make a Page!" button on one of my pages. I’m not positive, but I think if you do it from my page we’ll both benefit, once you make fifteen dollars worth of income. As I said it’s a fire hose of information and I don’t know all the ins and outs yet.