" Be still and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth."      ~ Psalm 46:10 ~

                    ______________________________________

I awoke this beautiful morning with this passage of scripture on my heart.......

One of the most challenging things for me to do is to "be still".....it actually requires this mama of 10 to really have to "work at" being still......it takes a purposed effort for me to "be still and know that God is at work"..... you see I am a "doer" by nature and I love to do do do......that can be a good thing at times..... and not a good things at other times....

God is showing me that right now, for today I need to be "still".......

Would you please pray for me today my friends? I come to you for your prayers of faith that I will be "still and know that GOD , is in charge and that He WILL be exalted before those who do not know Him".......

This is something God has laid in my heart today.... to be still and oh if you only knew how hard that can be for me at times!

Thank you dear friends for taking a moment to pray for me today.

He is faithful,

~ gloria ~

Imagine if we could bottle up some of that energy and drink it??

CHOOSE TO ENJOY THE MOMENT TODAY!!!

Today we are going to visit grandpa who just came home from the hospital after having surgery. We are bringing him some "frog muffins". We are going to tidy the house and cook dinner. We are going to light the fireplace. It's FREEZING out there!!!

  Well today is a wonderful day!  I guess LOL  At least I have another day!  The kids are being ornery (well Rach & Ethan) and Issac is still a little sickly.  Lucas is being his sweet self  

  I ordered some new kniting needles and sock yarn last week...I'm going to knit children's socks to sell.  I'm trying to knit some "testing" socks for mamas to try out on a diapering/parenting forum that I frequent. I'm so excited about this new venture!  Finding the actual time to knit though can prove interesting.  I'll hafta hide all my stuff and install a wireless security system to keep everything safe away from Ethan...my nosy little goober.  I have several different sock yarn colors so I can make for boys and girls...I only have like 2 pairs for newborns made right now, but I'm hoping to get my stock nicely built up soon!

 Well better get going!

Blessings,

~*Becca*~

We made some muffins this evening. My 3 year old had an interesting view of the whole process!

He's such a great baker! He even pretends to read the recipe quoting "three cups of flour!!"

We made these muffins before...of course they are not called Frog muffins rather lemon poppy seed muffins and in real life they are quite tasty The original recipe is from http://tammysrecipes.com but I changed it a bit to accomodate my dairy allergy:

(Dairy free)Lemon poppy seed muffins

Ingredients:

~2 cups warm water

~1/2 cup oil

~1/2 cup margarine

~4 tbs lemon zest

~1 1/4 cups sugar

~2 eggs

~4 cups flour

~3 tsp baking powder

~1 tsp baking soda

~1/3 cup poppy seeds

Method: Prepare batter as you would any other muffin batter and bake in muffin cup lined muffin tins for about 15 minutes in a 350F oven. Very yummy!!

We also made some more walnut snowballs. The batch made 63 pieces. It was gone in 2 days

My 7 year old helped with those as they were for her activity club's Christmas party.

I wish I could do all the things I'd love to do with my kids...but the greates gift I can give them is to slow down and really listen to what they are trying to tell me. Even if I don't get around to doing all sorts of crafts with them and we don't make it to the park every day......they will still at least know they are loved!! I get so impatient. But that will change!

" We often pray to be delivered from afflictions and even trust God that we will be.  But we do not pray for Him to make us what we should be while in the midst of the afflictions. Nor do we pray that we would be able to live within them, for however long they may last, in the complete awareness that we are held and sheltered by the Lord and can therefore continue within them without suffering any harm.

The Savior endured an especially difficult test in the wilderness while in the presense of Satan for forty days and nights. His human nature weakened by the need for food and rest. The three Hebrew young men were kept for a time in the flames of  "the furnace heated seven times hotter than usual" ( Dan 3:19).  In spite of being forced to endure the tyrant's last method of torture, they remained calm and composed as they waited for their time of deliverance to come. And after surviving an entire night sitting among the lions, "when Daniel was lifted from the dent, no wound was found on him, because he had trusted in his God."  ( Daniel 6:23).

They were able to endure the presense of their enemies because they dwelt in the presense of their God. "

~ L.B.Cowman ~

If you’ve read my blog before you may have come across a few articles in which I discuss cleaning my floors.  It would appear from those that I am one that loves clean floors.  In fact, in reality, I hate to do floors.  Well, more specifically, I hate to mop.  And so what does a farm girl who hates to mop do, but have 900 square feet of tile put in downstairs and another 900 or so square feet of wood upstairs.  Truly I did.  First, I tried carpet and living on the farm.   I met the harsh reality that St. Augustine just doesn’t grow in our pasture yard.  For one thing, we lack the basic requirement of trees for shade.  Yes, I planted 5 trees this year, but I will be a grandmother before they give enough shade for St. Augustine grass.  Even then, I would still lack loads of water to keep it nice, green and lush.   It takes oh so much more water to grow 2 acres of St. Augustine than it did to grow a postage stamp size yard of it in town.  So instead of my kiddos running in from lush carpet grass and clean little toesies right onto sweet carpet in the house, I get clunky mud boots full of, you guessed it, mud.  Yes, I can boast that we have at least a dozen native grasses in our pasture yard.  However, the thing about native grasses is that there is a lot of open dirt spots between all of the kinds.  But I hear that all that variety and nativeness (if that is not a word, then I am making it a word) is good for livestock.  And so, while I don’t fully appreciate my pasture yard, my goats, horse and cows do, at least in their area.  They are not allowed in my yard.   So that leads me to one of my misadventures in mopping.  I'm sure there will be more to come.

I started life on the farm with the industrial size mop complete with the large yellow 5 gallon mop bucket on wheels.  Yes, Mr. P was kind enough to make sure it came with the heavy duty mop wringer.  That really works the best on what seems like miles of tile.  However, I have never found a good place to keep the giant bucket.  So it lives on my side porch.  This means that when I go to mop, I must first vacate spiders.  Big, hairy, wolf spiders.  Apparently, a big yellow mop bucket on wheels is like a 5 star hotel to them.  So then I rinse it out and bring it inside.  The super duper mop works well and I can mop the entire downstairs in less than 30 minutes.  Somehow, I always dread it like it is a 3 hours project instead of the 30 minutes job it is.  So that, my friend, is the history of why I chose not to use the best tool for the job this past Thanksgiving.

As you read about my cleaning before Thanksgiving, you may have noticed that I bought an inexpensive mop at my local Fred’s (first bad idea).  (You know so I could splurge on paint for the windowsills.)  So I decided Thanksgiving morning (bad idea number 2) that I could do a quick mop of the spots and puppy prints.  I had a new can of scrubbing bubbles in lemon scent.  Do you use this harsh chemical?  You just spray on bubbles and off comes years of soap scum.  It is great.  (Except for how your hands feel afterwards.  It really leaves them in bad shape, so if you choose to have a misadventure in mopping, please wear gloves.  Your hands will thank you.)  So I think to myself that it will make a quick job of cleaning my spots and puppy prints (Third bad idea - let me interject to say that you can see that lack of sleep is leading to poor decision making).  I did for a moment think that it might remove my Future floor finish (first good idea), but then I realized that it was looking bad and it could stand to be mopped up anyway (really bad idea).  So, off I go just a spraying those scrubbing bubbles all over my tile.  I mop an area and then move on.  By the time I get to my breakfast nook, I realize that my floor has dandruff or something.  There are large flakes of stuff.  So I go back and scrub the areas I already mopped.  That is funny; it looks like giant flecks of soap scum on the sponge mop.  In fact, that is what it is.  Giant flecks of Future floor finish and any other soap that has built up over the last 4 years is now coming loose from the floor.  The more I mop, the worse it looks.  I mop and mop and mop some more.  Now, I am starting to panic.  I mean I have company coming in a little over an hour and my floors are looking worse than ever.  The more I mop, the worse it gets.  So I consider going to get the big mop and bucket, but decide that time is too short and spiders are too scary.  I just mop faster, rinse more often and say ugly things about Fred’s for selling such a pitiful excuse for a mop.  I also STOP using the scrubby bubbles(second good idea).  Apparently, the longer the scrubbing bubbles sit, the more the soap scum/floor finish is loosened.  It appears to be a never ending battle.  At one rinse, the entire mop head comes off.  It is easy enough to screw back on, but it is also easy enough to come loose * each * and * every * time * that I rinse and squeeze out that sponge mop head.  So finally, I call it good and hope that the lovely smell of turkey will distract anyone from noticing my floors.  Apparently it worked, because not one person said, “Why I didn’t know floors could get dandruff?”  Now I have to come up with a new plan to finish getting the bits of Future off the parts of the floor that I hurried through.  Do I dare try Scrubbing Bubbles again or is it too late and I should just move?

Blessings,

Mrs. P    

December 3

Attentiveness

That ye be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets.

2 Peter 3:2

When Henry Nelson of Wilmington, Delaware, arrived home one evening, he discovered that his apartment complex was being fumigated with hydrogen-cyanide. He  removed the sign, tore down the barricade, and went in. Neighbors tried to warn him and called the authorities. But by the time help arrived, it was too late. Henry Nelson was dead.

Mount St. Helens in the Cascade Mountains of Washington state was dormant for several hundred years. However, a few years ago, authorities discovered that there was activity and reason to believe there might be a serious eruption. People were evacuated from the area. But Harry Truman, who had grown up on those beautiful slopes, refused to leave. When the eruption was over, Harry and his home were buried under tons of volcanic ash.

Both men disregarded both written and verbal warnings, and it cost them their lives. If they had learned to be attentive, they would not have died.

When we ignore the instructions of the written Word, we show the highest disregard for God. “My son, hear the instructions of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother. For they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck” (Proverbs 1:8, 9).

Melvin L. Yoder, Gambier, OH

Give ear, and live!

Bible Reading: 2 Peter 3:1–14

One Year Bible Reading Plan:

1 John 1

Ezekiel 47, 48

Used by Permission of Vision Publishers

PO Box 190, Harrisonburg, VA  22803

Phone:  877-488-0901

E-Mail:  [cs@vision-publishers.com]