Yesterday and Today

As most of you can tell if you have been visiting my blog for any length of time, I don't have a huge knowledge of "market" problems.

But I watched the vote yesterday and really couldn't decide which way I was hoping the vote would go. My one side said, vote no, this is crazy the other side said, vote yes, we need to fix this thing.

Last night I watched Glenn Beck and towards the end he was talking about how our dollar is not going to purchase as much as it does right now. Even I can see that, so last night Chad and I were talking about if we were going to pre-buy something right now what would it be?

Can I just say either we have our head in the sand, we are not as smart as we think or we already have everything we need because our list was short and goofy.

Here is what Chad came up with:
1. A rooster (we are getting hens) (don't ask)
2. Oil for the oil changes
My list
1. Blankets (???)
2. Dried beans (that we don't like much)
3. Contact lens solution

We decided that we have no idea what to do! On the news they say things like we are headed towards a depression. What in the world does that mean? And what in the world are we suppose to do? And I mean DO?

So did any of you have this same type of conversation? And if so, did you all come up with any better ideas than we have going?

Jen

A new venture and the same ole failure

How come they (a new venture and the same ole failure) seem to go hand in hand? Debbie Williams is coming in October to our church for a conference on prayer. I am so excited but my prayer life has struggled since the day she said she was coming?

Then a week ago, Ms. Kitty our ladies leader said after the series by Beth Moore is finished in October I could teach a ladies study. I was so excited. Then Chad called and said he had decided to work with the youth as a small group leader. (Bless his heart!) But I was doubly excited and then we found out somethings at his work would be changing and he would get an extra day off. Kinda good, Kinda bad.

So I felt like God was wanting me to write some new material for the study coming up and a lady I know said she would do the editing so all was going well until yesterday! I needed to have an outline ready to give to a couple of people tonight. My plan was to go home, cook a wonderful meal, have a nice dinner and then hide out on the deck and get an outline going.

Instead someone who may be named something like Katie Bell, decided listening to her Ipod was a much better choice than getting the kitchen ready for me to cook dinner in. When I walked in the door and saw it looked exactly like it did when I left that morning and her cute little face with earphones on, I lost it. You know the kind of losing it where as it is happening your thinking I am going to have to say I'm sorry, but you just keep on going with it? That would be me.

Dinner was so-so, but for the life of me, even after saying I'm sorry, I just couldn't seem to get in the mind set to try to do an outline for a Bible study after acting like a fool.

This morning I dragged out my journal that I do love, and then wrote an article on our new ladies blog. After that I started feeling like I was seeing where the study needed to be headed. It's funny I don't know if it will help anyone else but just working on the outline has already challenged and encouraged me!

Here is the outline, let me know if you think it has enough draw to it to bring in our regular gals but also those that are struggling and not in a study.

God Fights FOR ~ We fight WITH

How can we learn to allow God to work through us to fight

FOR

our families, our friends and our co-workers?

The LORD will fight for you. Exodus 14:14

The light causes darkness to vanish, a skin care example

I am working on a new Bible study for our ladies group, and one of the topics that was floating in my mind last night when I went to bed was sin and ways to stop it.



So this morning when I woke up I had a picture in my mind of those verses about how when you sweep a house clean if you don't replace what you swept out with good (which was light in my dream) then the darkness things come back.



Then I dreamed I was cleaning my face, with those niffy little white cleaning pads and all this make-up and dirt was coming off. As I stood looking at myself I was thinking my face is squeaky clean. You know how that feels like your skin is going to crack off! The bad part of your skin being like that (according to my dream??) is that if you don't fix it, then germs can get in your skin. So as I was putting my moisturizer on, this convoluted mess made sense!




How goofy is that? Does it make sense to you? And if so, what kind of spiritual moisturizer are you using?

The ocean

Is there anyplace on all of earth, like the ocean?

Who has ever sat on the sand and watched the waves roll in and out and not felt calmer? The sounds, the repetitive cycle of the waves- in, out, in, out- with no variation. You know for a fact the next wave is coming, and there is nothing you can do to change it.

That could be the key to why we feel such peace, so relaxed, and even comforted at the edge of the ocean. For it is there at the edge, that deep down inside of us it says, “Look at me, I’m God and I’m in control!”

We all want to be independent with our lives, but at the same time we are like children. We want to know someone is watching over us and has drawn the boundaries, whether we will admit it or not. And the ocean reminds us of this. God is there and he has drawn the boundaries for us.

You may be shaking your head and asking, “What about when a storm is coming in. The ocean looks wild and dangerous then.” Be honest, don’t you crave that too? We all need excitement. All of us want to be a little dangerous sometimes. Think of all the ways we pursue it, good and bad.

The ocean shows us both sides of God- peace, calmness, and utterly dependable as well as wild, exciting and challenging! At times, life with him feels risky and a little scary…but think of the ocean waves, they still come in, go out, in, out, in, out…

And the same God controls them big or small, peaceful or wild!


Psalms 107:24-25They see the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep. He commands and raises the stormy wind which lifts up the waves if the sea.

Monday's musings

Good morning! Here in Georgia I am hearing some great news, cool weather has arrived, at least for this week. The highs are going to be in the low 80's and maybe even the high 70's!

I may have more time to enjoy it here at the house as several (maybe most) of our gas stations are either out of gas or close to it. I'm trying to wrap my head around that one, no gas. The places that still have gas have prices around $3.99. That is killing my gas budget.

Since I seem to be sharing all the things that are just crazy right now, how about the price of cheese? I made cheese grits Saturday morning, and I was shocked Friday that a block of cheese (16 ozs.) was $5.19. Notice I said block, not pre-shredded. Crazy times.

We got another letter from Onesmus and his personality is starting to come through. It is so neat. I know alot of people sponsor the little ones but if you have older kids really consider an older child. He is the same age as Meghan and I love seeing some similarities even though they are in different countries.

Have a great Monday and let me know how your gas situation is and what is just driving you crazy at the moment!

I forgot my Bible because Meghan is a star!

Last night I went to help with youth group. OK, help might be a little bit of a stretch this week. This week someone else was teaching so I went to support the youth group. He was teaching on gifts and wouldn't you know it, I forgot my Bible and he noticed. So he loaned me a Bible in front of everyone.



I so wanted to explain...but how do you do that gracefully? And how do you forget your Bible in the first place? Oh I know how:



Meghan was on TV last night and someone got so excited watching that it slipped my mind! Not to mention all the calls I made to say, do you see her? Chad's company volunteered at GPBS to answer phones when people called in to make a donation.



Here are a couple of pictures from the night:










She could bring a friend, Cameron, of course.









I just wish I could show you the video of when she got dressed in a pair of dress pants, that shirt and dress shoes. Then when I reminded her she needed a belt I thought she might come unglued. She did look very different than normal and it was kinda funny. I tried to make her feel better by telling her I have to dress like that most days! Her response...but you are old!

Chad somehow dodged being on TV except for one brief moment. Mom tivoed (is that a word??) so we are looking forward to having some laughs in the near future!

We lived up to the Labor in the Labor Day Weekend!

One thing about where we have moved is we have alot more work to do. We kinda enjoy it but at the same time it is kicking our tails! So we decided this weekend we would catch up and take on a project or two. Project number one was build Shelby a dog house. He started out living in the house with us, but I quickly realized we are crazy about him but he is like having a 2 year old in the house.

So he has been living outdoors! He has one of those electric collars that as long as he stays in the perimeter he is fine. If he gets too close he gets shocked. He has only been shocked twice. It seems to be working for us. He has plenty of running around room and we don't have to worry about him running off.

Lately he has been sleeping on the front porch step which has been fine until the last BIG rain we got. Chad noticed he got a little wet with the blowing rain. That planted the idea of building a dog house. Now I thought we could just go to the store and buy a nice ready made dog house. But Chad felt like it would be cheaper and would be pretty easy to do. He may have been wrong on both accounts!

He started working on it and I happened to walk outside and asked "why are you only building half of it?" He assured me Shelby would have plenty of room, but someone had a mild fit and the dog house got doubled in size!

So someone had to paint it! Katie, Lauren and I painted it but somehow it ended up with you know who painting it with a little help!

Last night we finally had stopped working and were starting to relax when we found out someone had a friend, who had a friend, who had a brother, who had a Brittany they didn't want anymore because his wife had died. Now we had been talking about getting Shelby a friend to play with because we are crazy. They didn't have any pictures, all they knew was he was a year old, 100% Brittany and free to a good home. So we jumped in the truck to ride over and look at him. Notice I said look at him, as we had been talking about another dog but just talking about it.

I honestly thought we could look at him and say "yes, thank you" or "no, thank you". So we pull up to this house in a little bit of a scary neighborhood with alot of houses very close together and I'm thinking, they must have to walk him alot because they have a ton of energy. (Which may be part of the reason Shelby runs outdoors!)

The guys brother slips into the backyard, we can't see because it is a privacy fence. And brings out Buster, who is so SKINNY that it was horrible! You can count all his ribs, his tail bones, every bone in that poor things body. AND HYPER like I could not believe! We didn't fall in love with him like we did Shelby, but there was no way we could just walk away and leave him. So yours truly WALKED the dog through the neighborhood with Chad driving ahead of us, so maybe he would calm down. Which he did.

We feed him, watered him and played with him some last night and he seems to be as sweet as Shelby just a little more hyper. Several years ago Chad and I tried to adopt a dog and failed the test, and at that point I started thinking those people who adopt dogs are a little crazy. But after seeing Buster last night I can see how you would want to just shake someone and ask why? Why would you have a dog and not feed it for heavens sake?

In case you are wondering why Buster is tied to 2 concrete blocks, we didn't know what to do with him! Chad is picking up another collar today so he'll be able to run around the yard but for today he looks like we are the mean ones!

Of course the big dog house will be perfect now!