Thankful Thursday Top ??

I am going to attempt my Thankful Thursday post - but frankly putting 10 on it makes me feel very ungrateful when I can only reach 7...which usually seems to be my magic number.  Ah well, here goes - things I am thankful for TODAY!

1) Being able to work from home.
There is nothing quite like getting up in the morning (at 9 since my hubby gets up with the baby at 7), getting a shower, watching some Sesame Street then putting Grace down for her morning nap and heading to my office...in my pajamas.  :) 

2) A job.
In the same vein, having a job and an income is always nice.  It's always nice when random extras come in too - I like those surprise additions of income.  Maybe I will start selling cakes.  But still no weddings :)

3) Grace as a snuggler!
For whatever reason lately Grace has decided she likes to snuggle - which I'm ok with.  I love watching her grow up and how much she loves me :)  I know that sounds silly, but its sweet.  I also love how easily she gets along with people she doesn't know as well - it takes her a moment to warm up to them but she is usually very good with other people too!

4) My Bible study girls
I'm so excited to be able to continue to work with them!  We just got a great donation to the program this morning that will help pay for the expenses of almost three girls.  As we're getting closer to the end and having the bigger expenses start to come that is amazing God timing and I'm grateful!

5) Sickness
Sickness? Yes, sickness.  I haven't felt so good today or last night...and I am choosing to be thankful for it because it means we've got a baby growing.  I am also thankful for a God who watches over us, blesses us and holds us in His hands.

6) Friends who leave me the contents of their freezers :)
Last night we had a wonderful dinner made almost entirely of food left behind when my new friend moved back to Georgia!  Yummy :)

7) Sweet Rolls
Apparently I get to make sweet rolls with my mom today.  I love that she lives close enough for us to go over whenever we feel like it.  I love that she taught me how to bake and that is a skill I still have.  I love that she invites us over because she likes us!!

8) Jordan
My 15 year old little sister who had a birthday yesterday!  I can remember when she was LITTLE!!! (Ok, she is my sister in law, but whatever).  Ah those kids are growing up SO fast!  She is a sweet girl, an awesome babysitter and a wonderful young lady!

9) My hubby
What a great man he is to get up with the baby every morning!  He also does not have the joy of working at home so kudos to him for braving the weather and going to work every morning.  He takes good care of us!

10) Christmas
I love getting together with my family and just spending time.  I can't wait for tomorrow and Saturday!! (And my hubby gets this weekend off work which is even better!!)


Ah, I made it to 10 - not so eloquently but there you go - 10 reasons I feel blessed, love and content.

I'm not Ragu.

I don't know why, I think that is funny! (Ok, obvious to me but if I'm not Ragu...I'm Prego...) Since only two people read this so far (and I'm perfectly ok with that for the time being - don't really want to "go public" until I figure out WHAT I really want to get out of this) I figured I'd share a little about the pregnancy.

On Tuesday night I bought a pregnancy test - thinking I'd taking in Christmas morning and maybe have an extra present :)  But Wendesday I was sitting at my desk thinking about how incredibly strange it was that I had started taking prenatal vitamins again out of the blue and also that alcohol seemed disgusting to me.  So I thought why not.  Typically if I take a pregnancy test I stare at it until I am absolutely sure it is done changing...this time I took it, set it on the counter and went back to work.  Then a few minutes later I went back to check...imagine my surprise when I saw the two lines.  So then I took three more tests that day :)  All positive.

So far we've told some family and close friends.  I think given that I've had a miscarriage and my friend recently had one that is definitely on our minds...but I also know that we serve an awesome God and His will will be done.  I have no control over that.  So instead of living in fear I'm choosing to live in faith.  He has this baby in his hands and I am not going to worry about it.  I have my first doctor's appointment on January 12th and I am anxious to go and hopefully hear the heartbeat at that point - but either way, I'm sure that God is in control.

I have felt great so far - a little more nausea today then I've had so far - and call me crazy but right now I'm thankful for my body telling me everything is going well.  :) 

Three Things I'm Thankful For:
1) My amazing family and friends and all their encouragement
2) A nationally recognized holiday to set aside time to share with each other....
3) And YOU!

Some things stop being cute.

No, not my daughter.  She is always cute - even when she smears yogurt all over her face (which admittedly wasn't cute at the time...I had Bible study in about an hour, she needed a bath and my house needed to be picked up.)

Ah well.  I ran a bath for her while I warmed up my dinner then ate in the bathroom while she played in the tub.  Whatever works :)  It is moments like this where I think I'm a fairly laid back mom and roll with the punches.  Other times, not so often! 

Ok, so what stops being cute?  Asking people if their pregnant when you're older than five.  I had two different women stop me Monday night and ask me if I was pregnant.  SOOOO irritating.  I wanted to say, no, are you?  But thought that was overly mean so I just said "no, I'm not...if I was I would have let you know."  Not cute people, not cute.

I have a few more hours worth of work to do tonight so I'm going to get off here.  Keep in all in perspective - that is my moral of the story for today.

Christmas Banquet Day!

Today was Christmas Banquet day at church!  Oh, what fun!  I am so thankful for my church family that has such fun participating in this kind of stuff.  Lots of people brought food, we had all kinds of crazy activities for the kids that one of the ladies organized, music by some of the kids - I love that everyone just comes together to get it done!  And I was also impressed by how quickly it all gets cleaned up...no complaining or grumbling about dishes or sweeping - no harsh words or pointed fingers about who is doing what...just everyone doing what they see needs to be done until it was all cleaned up.  And of course, it doesn't get much better than when I went out to my car and saw that one of the guys had cleaned the snow off ALL the cars that were still in the parking lot! 

This got me to thinking about my daughter.  I hope that I am able to teach her hospitality.  I would love for her to grow up to be one of those kids that loves to help, that sees something that needs to be done so she just does it...and I want to be that mom that is ready at a moments notice for her friends to come over (because lets face it, I'd rather her want to spend her time here with her friends then always be somewhere else), I want her to know that it is always ok to call her mom because I won't judge (and of course that doesn't mean we won't punish as necessary) - we'll just solve the problem.  Ahh, lofty aspirations and I know some days I'll fail, but I pray that I live up to that.

I'm thankful for these quiet moments in my house where Grace is happily playing, the house is on it's way to being clean and all seems right with the world.  I know I still have emails to answer, paperwork to finish and more house to clean...but right now, in this moment my heart is filled with friends, family and joy :) 

Merry Christmas!

Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

What a wonderful weekend it has been.  Wednesday was a lazy day.  We did...pretty much nothing.  I hung out with my baby and that's about it.  Some days, I just want to hang out with my kid.  Yesterday I got up with her at 6:30...then she decided to stay in bed so I showered then slept on the couch until 8:30.  We were in the car at 9:30 and on the way to Indiana by 10am.  We had an AWESOME time in Indiana and Grace did awesome.  She was a good listener all day.  Then we came home, hung out with the hubby, had chocolate pie for dinner.  So good.  I love my family.

This was Grace's first art project.  It is now hanging on my fridge.  :)  Delightful.

Alrighty, my brain hurts and I have a lot more to say but I'd like to sleep so I'm going to keep moving instead of typing.

The little things

Good news, I found my password! :D 

I think I'm coming up with a new plan for my life.  I'm sick of the big picture and while I think it's important to have a plan I was reminded yesterday that it is important to be faithful in the little things.  Yes, I need to know what I want to do with my life - but is that any more important than the tone of my voice, how I handle frustration or how I spend my minute?  I don't think so.  I think God really wants me to be faithful in RIGHT NOW.  And once I master this minute maybe I'll get another :)

The past two weeks have been nuts.  Anytime we have a special event with work it throws off my schedule.  It shouldn't, but it is a lot of extra prep and follow up.  My schedule normally looks like this...

Monday: Prep for bingo, bingo, sleep.
Tuesday: Bingo paperwork, staff meeting, a few emails
Wednesday: Panic, emails, get bingo tickets, emails, date
Thursday: emails, start on to-do list from meeting, count bingo tickets at night
Friday: Hope and pray I finish my emails and to do list before the evening.
Saturday: Finish everything I didn't manage to get done
Sunday: Church, keep my office door closed.

I think one day I'll figure out this craziness.  But again, I was reminded Wednesday that I can either worry about getting it all done, or I can just be faithful in right now, do what I can right now and move on.  Hopefully that will always be enough.

I should be cleaning...

I feel spent.  Worn out.  Done.  I'm fine, don't get me wrong.  I got enough sleep, my daughter is amazing, my husband is loving but I am just at that point where I'm mentally tired.  Which is why I am not cleaning.  It shouldn't be a taxing thing, to figure out where that box of cake mix actually goes, but I just can't do it right now.  I don't care.  The cake mix can sit on the top of the refrigerator until I decide to make the thing (which is probably a bad example because that would end up sooner rather than later I'd guess).  Ugh.  I really wish I could pack up my entire house in boxes (except maybe the baby's room) and start over again.  This time I'd invite my mom over to help, she's a whiz.  In all my life, in every house I can remember EVERYTHING had a place.  If I wanted batteries, I knew which drawer...toilet paper was stocked and in the same spot...and there was a well organized pantry.  I really should call my mom and thank her.  :)

Today was good.  I had a staff meeting this afternoon and we started with "what is God saying to you" rather than "whats on your list".  I think it's important to remember its a ministry first and a job second.  It was a nice change of pace - I feel like it set the tone for the meeting.  And then instead of coming home tired like I usually do I banged out two fairly large projects in a rather small amount of time!  Ahh, joy. 

We got our pictures done!  I need to post them all on here - but I haven't done that yet :)  They turned out ok - I don't know if I'm just picky about pictures but I don't love them.  There is one of Grace that is awesome, but that's about it.  Ah well.  One of these days I'll find a studio I love.  :) 

We are starting another round of Princesses here in a couple weeks.  It should be pretty interesting.  The book we're doing is more about sex and makes me blush but hopefully it'll have information that is good for these girls - and I do think it is appropriate for the entire group.  I think we have 6 girls right now.  I like it.

Alrighty, I think I am going to tackle my office tonight because I'm sick of being in here with it crazy.  I have this wacky idea that if I just manage to straighten it all up I'll be much more productive.  I'm not sure how true that is, but I suppose it's worth a shot.  Although really, the idea of cleaning it is once again overwhelming and makes me really not excited.  Maybe I'll find an online game to play instead :)

Miss ya girl!

What a week!

It's weeks like this that I wish I could lock myself in my room for a day and not come out...but then who would take care of my little one and would I really want to miss an entire day of her sweet face?  I think not.  It has been a rough week in my world - car issues that seem overwhelming, I haven't been feeling good (we're going to test tomorrow...might be too soon...or I might be crazy), its been a hard communication week in marriage and as always I have a pile of things that all need attention right now.  But "Jesus is my portion, a constant friend is He.  His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me." 

I have a friend who has "Thankful Thursday" blogs - so here goes...

1) I have amazing friends who rally around me when I need support and who will rejoice with me over the little things.

2) I have a beautiful little girl who makes me smile with her smile.

3) I have a surprise baby shower to look forward to this weekend...because babies are fun to celebrate.

4) My house WILL get cleaner this weekend and that is a good thing.

5) I got to help make a difference to someone today.

6) Applesauce.

7) I have some projects for the weekend I am really looking forward to.

It's weeks like these that I'm thankful for my friends and family and as I look around at the craziness of the world, I realize that I have it pretty darn good.  I'm hoping tomorrow shots will go ok for Grace and hopefully she will get some rest (and this momma will get some work done).  We shall see.  I'm trying to get some work done now - it's not going very well.  I am making a baby shower cake for Sunday and am too busy looking at ideas :)  Ah well, it'll all get done right?

I sing because

Today we got bad news about the car - on a best/worst case scenario scale we definitely got the worst of the worst (ok, it could probably actually be worse but it doesn't feel like it right now.)  But then I'm reminded of the song...

Why should I feel discouraged,
Why should the shadows come,
Why should my heart feel lonely
And long for Heav'n and home,
When Jesus is my portion?
A constant Friend is He:
His eye is on the sparrow,
And I know He watches over me;
His eye is on the sparrow,
And I know He watches me.

Refrain:
I sing because I'm happy,
I sing because I'm free,
His eye is on the sparrow,
And I know He watches me
(His Eye Is On The Sparrow)

Missed a day...

...on purpose.  I figure if I'm going to do this blog thing I can't let it run my life, so I skipped a day :)  Yesterday, well, the whole weekend was amazing.  Friday night I honestly don't remember...I think I counted bingo tickets.  Saturday I got up and went to the farmer's market, the orchard and a couple stores with my mom.  Then I made applesauce...and more applesauce...and more applesauce.  18 quarts so far and I'm only 2/3 of the way done.  It was awesome.  I want to be one of those moms that does stuff like that...and it tastes SO much better than store bought.  Oh, that's what I did Friday night - I made some chunky applesauce for my dad real quick so that he wouldn't get suspicious why I asked what kind he likes! :)

I've discovered that I want to help people.  Especially kids - I love my kid so much I feel like I need to make sure all kids feel loved.  For right now that will consist more of teens then of kids but one day, one day I hope to work with kids.  We shall see!  I was reading 1 Timothy today and was reminded that I serve a living God - He is at work all around me so I will watch for opportunites to be invited to work alongside Him with whomever He sees fit.

I feel like I've matured lately...I think knowing that my daughter is going to watch and mimic me I want to make sure I'm the person I want her to be...if that makes sense.  I can definitely feel some of my rough edges chipping away and flaws I ignore getting the spotlight.  It's a tough process but one I am grateful for.

I need to get to work - Mondays are always slightly overwhelming with the amount of things to get done quickly, but we'll make it happen! :)

A clean kitchen...

If I had to choose one thing that had to be done before I went to bed each day it would be that my kitchen would be clean.  I feel like the kitchen is the heartbeat of the house - meals are time together, baking is to be shared and it all flows from the kitchen.  It doesn't matter where the meal is eaten or where the cookies are devoured, they all start at the same place. Baking is an excuse to get together with friends, a way to give a little piece of me and something that says "hey, here is your big hug for the day." 

Today I am done with one of three boxes of apples.  I don't plan on really sharing this blog anytime soon so it can be known that it is for applesauce and apple butter.  I don't want to get stressed out for Christmas about buying the right thing at the right price - if I see it, fine...if not I'm going to invest my time making the right thing for the right person and not worrying about it.  Why?  Because it isn't about what I spend on them or really what the gift is - it's about knowing that person and finding something they will love.

Today I feel like I can conquer the world although it makes me sad when my friends hurt and I can't do anything to help.  Since my darling daughter decided to stay awake last night from 2:30-4:30 I'm going to go to bed very soon.  Hopefully tomorrow will be a delightful family day.

Three Things I Love To Bake (other than cake):
1) Cream Puffs
2) Crepes
3) Cookies

C is for cookie, that's good enough for me!  :D

It's the little things...

Today I'm reminded to stop and smell the roses...or at least stop and smell the outdoors :)  I usually stay home during the day simply because if I miss nap time, I miss work time.  But today we went to the park and played, and visited, and laughed and it felt good.  I think this will be the hardest year as far as balancing the baby and life - mainly because she requires constant supervision.  I'm hoping that as she grows up it'll get easier (but lets face it, I'm also hoping for more babies so who knows how that will all work out!). 

I love that face.  This weekend I want to get my house clean...again.  I think that is what I say every weekend.  I think it would be very nice to pack up everything I own and then re-move in.  I feel like I could clear up a lot of clutter that way.  Perhaps not - but it seems like it would help.  This weekend for sure: laundry, kitchen, and baby's room.  I am also going to make lots and lots of applesauce.  :) 

Three Things That Make Me Smile:
1) My family and friends (so that's a lot more than three, but it's my blog so I'll do what I want!)
2) Applesauce :)
3) Organization or at least the appearance of!

Inspiration

Today I was reminded that if I don't make the time to spend with friends it will never happen.  That casual "lets get together" is usually a nice way of saying "I intend to invest in our relationship if you'd be so good as to remind me."  I need to make sure that I make definite plans...even if they need to be changed at least it is more tangible. 

I'm inspired by my friends and family.  I love watching other people and seeing how they don't wait for life to prompt them to go out and do something - they just go out and do it.  Whether it is figuring out how to home school their kids, arranging a trip to an apple orchard, move to a brand new city to pursue a dream or deciding that today is the day to declutter the entire house.  This weekend, I am doing a major project on Saturday...and I can't tell you what it is because it is a surprise for someone :)

Three Goals For The Next Month:
1. Take more pictures and actually do something with them.
2. Make plans with friends.
3. Work during nap time, after bedtime and when other people are watching her and use that awake time to enjoy my daughter, not to stress about all that is not getting done.