I don't know how you all do it....keeping up with a blog, I mean. Around here I'm so busy it's hard to even think about writing daily.
The garden is in and starting to grow, Thanks to some much needed rain everything is sprouted. I've had a bird chomp off a few tomato plants and the green beans haven't come up as well as I hoped, so those may get replanted. The corn has been thinned and hilled and for the most part the weeding hasn't gotton ahead of me. We still need to go get mulch hay but just haven't had the time. Need to do that soon.
We were given a swimming pool this spring. My husband has been working hard to set it up. He hand dug the ground and we all spent an entire day putting up the steel frame and liner. It went up surprisingly well. We have filled it to the depth of one foot and realized the liner was too taut and in danger of tearing. And so now, here we sit. Can't decide whether to bite the bullet now and replace the liner or keep filling and take the chance it may work and stretch enough for this year.The heat and the fact our children are swimming in it already seem to have given the liner some flexibility. What to do, what to do...
Yesterday marked a death sentence for our 12-yr-old Lumina. It won't pass inspection. We knew the car is in bad shape but really hoped to squeak it through one more year. But then again, we said that last year too. So now we are in the market for a new vehicle. I'd rather go down to one car for awhile because of the gas prices and the cost of a second car. We (I)really don't want to take on a car loan, especially with the economy right now. When I think of paying three to four years on a car that is already three to four years old..it makes me sick. Our budget for cars has stayed relatively the same over the years but of course the price keeps traveling upwards on them, so while fifteen years ago we could afford a very newly car, we no longer can. Oh, the saga. I know God has this all planned out and already has his plan in place, we just need to find it. :)
Have a great day, everyone!
Planting season is almost done. I've spent the last week and a half getting the garden in. Still have some cukes and squashes to plant. I'm still waiting to see if Dh is going to till up another spot of the yard for the squashes because someone(ok, it was me) had bigger eyes than space in the garden. I came home with two flats of tomatos and peppers which took ALOT of room to plant. Oopsy! I may end up doing some companion planting with the corn and squash instead which is doable but not ideal. And I'm still not going to have enough room.
This year I'm keeping track of my garden spending . So far we have $16/lime $21/tomatos and pepper (next year I AM starting from seed) $30/seeds. And writing of seeds, corn was $6.95 a HALF pound! Yikes. I still need some mulch hay which I think may come freely from a friend/farmer but have offered to buy.So we'll see.
And a sidenote: Really big sunhats brought home from Barbados as a gift do wonders for fairskinned people such as myself! Thanks friend! You know who you are! Spent all day in the garden without sunscreen and am NOT burned. Woo Hoo!
Today is my husband's and my 25th wedding anniversary. Wow. I can't believe it has been that long..more than half of our lives together. I am richly blessed and love him more today than the day we married.
What is really funny is that for years we would look forward to this date and have all kinds of extravagant plans for celebration. On our twenty-fifth he would buy me a diamond ring and I would take him to Europe so he could see the mountains. Somehow we marked this date as one of prosperity.lol. We don't have any more money today then we did several years ago...and seriously we could care less. No, I didn't get my diamond ring and honestly no longer want one, but we are planning a week long trip to the mountains of North Carolina. Yep. I'm one lucky gal!
I've been asked on how to love a critical person. The only answer I can give is ..through God. On my own, I'm unable. I hope I can explain this better by what is happening with the person I am praying for now. See, when all the note-writing began, some of it was directed right at me but posted so the entire department "knew" who it was intended for. I don't take criticism well and while hurt put up a good front. I even publicly acknowledged my errors but didn't let others know how I was feeling. Other times it was some verbal criticisms .Eventually I started to become angry..and kept it in. When the note-writing began to escalate and affect moral and personal feelings of others, I was really angry. I very simply said," God, this has to stop. She cannot keep doing this to people. This HAS to stop."
And He said, "Pray for her."
And I said,"No way God, I don't even like her. How do you expect me to pray for her?"
And he said, "Pray."
So that is what I've been doing.At first it was very difficult. God has shown me that sometimes when a person feels out of control in areas of life, they will compensate by overcontrolling the areas they can. He gave me the idea to leave a positive message for the negative ones. By prompting me to prayer , He has shown His great love for her. How can I not love a person who God does? I no longer am taking the notes personally because I know there is an unhappy woman writing them.
Jesus tells us in Matthew 5, verse 44 to love our enemies and pray for those that persecute us. Why? So that we may be sons of our Father in Heaven (verse45). These verses, Matthew 5;43-48 fit well right now.
In ending, I just want to reiterate from my first post that I live a very ordinary life. I'm not highly educated nor do I have any type of theological training, just a simple heart that loves the Lord. What I write is just my opinion.
You know, I am really thinking tonight on "critical spirits". I have been exposed recently to a woman who bears one. Why is it that some people can't find anything good to say or write but delight in words that are intentioned to insult, degrade and offend another? I just don't get it.
This woman routinely leaves notes all around my work environment... notes that demand, notes that accuse, notes full of choice language, notes full of anger,notes done in black marker on bright paper, second bigger notes because apparently the first ones weren't big enough. They aren't directed at me, but rather our entire department. The gals I work with have always tried to excell at their work and work well together as a team. These notes are hurting them. I hear it in their voices and see it in their face.
I'm praying for this woman, because her actions just have to stop.I know she is an unhappy woman. I know life is difficult for her. I am trying to be compassionate and positive, but I hate the injustice being done. I see how this person's actions are hurting others and I feel their pain. I want this woman to be happy.Really.
I really feel God wants me to plant a positive seed for every negative one she plants.If something negative gets posted... I am to write something positive, and post it.That is all I know to do right now.Perhaps then the others who are hurting will have their spirits lifted back up, and the hurter will soften.
I will update as God works this out.
I like that term.. momnesia. A co-worker coined it when I asked her to write down a customer order because there was no way I would remember it correctly. "Oh, you have momnesia, I see." We laughed but yesterday proved if I don't have momnesia then I'm definately having a few senior moments, which can't be true since I have just turned (gulp) 44.
All week I've been telling my 7 year old that if he didn't get up on time for the school field trip, then he would miss the bus and thence miss the trip. He HAD to be at schoolat 7:15 sharp. Now this is a child who takes a comfortable half hour waking up and as a mom you get SO frustrated. To get up and to school a full hour before the normal start time would be a miracle in my book. So guess who oversleeps and wakes up precisely at 6:48? Me! We had twenty minutes to get to school. Ugh! This is one time I'm glad we live only five minutes away!
And yesterday was also a day I planned on doing some baking for a funeral dinner that is today. It was not on my plans to clean the kitchen. Being in a hurry and trying to multitask dinner and cake mixing at the same time just isn't a good idea. I was making a marble cake, you know the kind, where you remove some of the batter and add the chocolate then pour it allback into the baking dish for a beautiful swirly effect. Well, I couldn't find my small mixing bowl to pour some of that batter into, so I got this braniac idea to pour one cup of the batter back into the measuring cup. Add the cocoa, remove a beater from the mixer, and presto! I'd have the batter mixed in a jiffy. Things don't always work out the way you plan. One cup of batter and a quarter cup of cocoa overfilled the cup.Add a beater twirling in one direction and you get a mess...a big one. Chocolate batter was all over the kitchen in a circular pattern and down the front of my jeans!
Yep, momnesia. It's a good term. It allowed me to laugh at myself yesterday as I drove to school with a bedhead and clean up quite a mess later in the kitchen!
I woke up this morning to find my DH had tilled more of the garden up while I was working last night. That means soon more planting of the garden! The children and I have already transplanted 60 strawberry plants and put in some of the earlier seeds....beets, carrots, chard, onions, peas, etc. Some of our planting is beginning to make an appearance. The peas aren't coming up as thickly as I would of liked to have seen so those may have to be reseeded.
Each year I like to play alittle with techniques. My earlier seeds are all planted in four foot rows spaced 1 foot apart..except the strawberries which are planted the traditional way. My DH chuckles and says it's not going to work but I think that this is similiar to the square foot gardening and should work once the plants grow. The plants should grow in a fashion they shade out the weeds and the one foot spacing gives me some foot room to get in there.
I'm also looking into using newspaper as mulch between the rows, particularly in the larger part of the garden. I'm a bit leary of doing this ONLY because of the possibility of it drying out and blowing all over the neighborhood. We've always tried to use organic materials but they tend to reseed weeds and the idea is to rid the garden of the undesirable things. Still, old mulch hay works wonderfully at controlling the weeding and does help to hold the moisture in. Mmm. Mulch hay on top of newspaper.Now that might work!
There are seasons in life, seasons in nature and seasons of interests. This blog is my attempt to share about me and my seasons.....
I am an ordinary wife, mom and sister. I live a quiet but busy life. My husband and I are in the midst of raising our family of seven children..three of whom are now out on their own. We don't currently homeschool(used to), we don't farm or live out in the country...just enjoy a few acres in a small town.
It is my prayer that God be glorified through these pages.He is the One who takes the ordinary in our lives and considers them extraordinary!