once a month cooking

Well I have been reading up and looking for recipes to try and I'm ready to go at it.. I am wanting to stock my freezer up with ready to eat home cooked meals that are fast and convenient. I have been reading a couple of ladies blogs here lately that have really inspired me to do so.

I have on my list to make today: sweet potato casserole, Mashed potatoes, Homemade re fried beans, Bean and cheese burritos, Breakfast burritos, mac n cheese and a few other things. If all goes well I will try and post pictures.

This will be interesting and I'm looking forward to the results cause if I can manage this once a month cooking that will free up alot of my time for other things.

Fun ways to earn cash and ideas to earn free products

I have put together at the bottom of my blog a list of places I have joined to make some spare change and earn free prizes. I have checked them out and they are all known to be very good companies that I have used myself. There are tons of opportunities to take advantage of out there. I will be adding more as I find them and review them for myself.

Prayer Request

To all or whom may read this I just ask that we all come together and pray for this nation and each other as brothers and sisters in Christ. I really wish I knew more Narrow minded bible believing Christians in my area I feel so alone sometimes but realize I'm never alone cause God is always with me. It can get to be a struggle sometimes living to be different and serve Christ when the world around you is going down the drain but I just look forward to the reason I'm doing it and that is to be Gods light in a darkened world.

Gettin back in the groove

Well I do not blog often except when I have lots going on and something exciteing to share or have a huge inspiration from the Lord to do so. God has been taking me thru the Fire and Trials of life to make me the person I have been praying him to make me. I have a Great desire to overcome any sin, anger or spirit that stands in my way of becoming the woman Christ wants me to be. When you really have the desire and pray for God to strengthen you and help you it will not be easy cause he will and can purge you of all things that are not bearing good fruit in your life and that is when the fight with Satan begins. We must put on the full armour of God new each day ready to battle so we can win the fight and overcome our strongholds. Well that is a bit of what im learning and pushing thru right now. I pray that all Woman will have the desire to fulfill there God given roles in life and will suceed.

Homemade Garden fresh

Well our garden has been busting out the cucumbers, squash and tomatoes like crazy been giving most of it away and freezing and making homemade tomato sauce and sweet and sour pickles. I LOVE IT! I have learned so much from this years gardening experience that will be good use for next year. I'm going to start prep early for next year that way I can plan better now that I know a few tips and tricks. Things are alot easier to do then alot of people make it sound you just have to get in there and try it for yourself to realize. Work can be hard at first but in the end it is truly rewarding.

Growing like a weed and new birth.

Well My Second daughters B-day is coming close. August 14Th she will be a year old. I have loved her company and she has been such a blessing. She is learning quickly and very smart like her older sister. As for me i'm into my 19th week of pregnancy and feeling great. My due date is set for December 31St. I am so excited and ready to welcome our Third addition to the family. I love being a keeper of the home and a mother God has taught me so much and blessed me in so many ways beyond what I feel I deserve but I know that it's all because He loves me.

Well lots to do and no more to write .

Some Garden pictures

Yellow squash

Tomatoes

Back row-2 Bell peppers

Front Row- 2 Jalapenos

Acorn Squash

Okra

This is the before of our garden after it is DE-grassed and tilled and rows have been plotted. and a few pictures of the veg tables we planted.

Lots of work but well worth it in the end! Hubby is out right now putting up a fence around it and I will post more later on the final and finished product.

Back to cleaning and cooking. Hope everyone has just as good of a day as I have had. It is beautiful and I love the Lord for all he has allowed me to accomplish.

Gardening and sewing

Well we started tilling our garden yesterday and got a good bit tilled and racked but we still have some grass to remove which we will work on today and tomorrow and hopefully I can get all my veg tables in the ground on Saturday. :) very exciting! I'm reading some things on canning tomato cause I plan on making my own diced tomatoes and tomato sauce. Lots of work but will be well worth it when it's all said and done so I'm not looking at the now I'm looking at the future when I can say I'm glad i did this.

The pastors wife at the church I attend is teaching me to sew on Thursday nights. We started last week with first night and she taught me how to measure and cut out the patterns and tonight we will be working on sewing the dress. This is really fun and i think I might get good at it and go on a sewing frenzy! Oh the plans I have. I'm gonna make me some aprons first chance.

Well back to cleaning then im gonna try and get outside and rack the garden some more.

Things going on.........

Not much different each day except taking care of my home and children as I love.

Yard work has officially started hubby and I mowed and cleaned up the yard yesterday and we will begin tilling our garden this weekend.:) I'm really excited about that. Hopefully everything grows well and I can tend to it's needs...I will post pictures right after we have everything in ground. I did a garden last year which was my first and it went alright but i learned alot through my experience and from others so I'm hoping it will go alot better this time around. I am planting Cucumbers, Green Beans, Peas, Okra, Bell peppers, Jalapenos, Acorn squash, Tomatoes, Cherry Tomatoes, Tabasco peppers and basil.

Catching up, lovely weather and learning new things

Well I have not blogged in a llllllooooooonnnnnnnggg time! I have not been feeling like it and I also have been trying to spend as little time on the Internet as I can.

The weather here these past couple days has been so nice. I love to open the windows and let the fresh warm air in and the smell of the outdoors can be so wonderful unless the neighbor hood skunk comes by. This weather is also telling me to hurry up and get my garden plans in gear. I will be having a much larger garden than last year since I have a little more experience. I will be growing multiple kinds of patio flowers and I will be making a large veg table garden in back that will have cucumbers, green beans, tomatoes, bell peppers and jalapenos. I have already planted all my indoor starter seeds.

I have been on a mission to learn more things to make homemade such as laundry soap, buttermilk and perfecting my homemade yogurt. I'm gonna try out the butter milk and the laundry soap here in these next couple days. I have been making my daughters baby food homemade and that is super easy and so much cheaper than the store bought.

Well have to go put away groceries and do some cleaning but will blog again someday soon when I feel like taking the time to do so or feel inspired about something to write.

Oh yes the Duggars Jim-bob and Michelle are coming to Barnes and Noble this Saturday for there book signing and I'm excited:) I already bought my copy of the book.

just a good article I found

Do you ever have recurring spiritual questions? Like recurring dreams, they keep coming up over and over, sometimes for years. In high school and college I had a question that came up every few months, but I felt I could never get a straight answer. I was wrestling with the “works” part of my faith. Where do “works” come from? Do I just decide to do things for God and that’s how I show my faith or do I focus so much on God that my actions are a natural byproduct of my relationship? To me, the first seemed too contrived and the second seemed nearly impossible. I prayed that God would show me the answer. How am I supposed to live, Lord? I wanted Him to just open me to the right page in the Bible. When I asked Christians I knew and looked up to, I received vague advice that left me confused and feeling that maybe no one really knew the answer. I knew that seeking the truth was important. Understanding this was crucial to how I lived my life. It affected the very core of how I operated as a person. But when I didn’t get an answer right away, my desire to seek faded out as other “pressing” matters crept in: school projects, relationships, and even things at church. I could almost tell what was happening during quiet times with the Lord-I wasn’t looking, I wasn’t asking. I would soon forget all about my questions and my spiritual seeking would be pacified for a few more months.

Here’s some advice: When a spiritual question starts to gnaw at you and you can’t stop thinking about it, don’t stop until you find an answer. Don’t let it slip away like so many other spiritual things have a tendency to do. Write it down and carry it around in your pocket. Post it on the mirror in your bathroom. Keep asking and keep seeking. God has allowed that question in your life so you would seek after Him and come to know Him better. He wants you to ask and seek, but He won’t do your work for you. Oswald Chambers wrote, “The reason for asking is so you may get to know God better…We should keep praying to get a perfect understanding of God Himself.” You see, it’s not so much the answer to your question that is important, but asking the question and seeking the answer brings you into a closer relationship with God-you’ve come to know Him in a new way. You have experienced God.

Oftentimes, we don’t hear from God because we don’t wait for His response. Many of us have spiritual ADD-we can’t pay attention to anything for more than a few minutes. We make a request and then get caught up with what’s going on around us and cannot focus on the spiritual world long enough to see what happens.

It’s not easy to be focused spiritually-diligently seeking and waiting for God. It’s like trying to read when the TV’s on. Life is loud and flashy. It forces us to look at it and lose ourselves in it. It seems impossible to stay focused on something so quiet and still, something that doesn’t demand our attention. But we must. We must force ourselves to do it. We can’t turn the TV off. Life will continue to blare in our ears and flash in our peripheral vision until the day we die. But somehow we must turn our eyes upon Jesus.

My own question has slowly been answered over time. The Lord has brought wisdom and insight through a few books and devotionals that have come my way. I know that the Lord put those things in my path to guide me and show me the truth when I needed it and because I asked for it. When it comes to works, I’ve learned that we are intended to “abide in the vine” first and foremost and the rest will follow.

Seeking God takes effort. Continue to ask questions. Continue to listen. Wait in excited anticipation of God. Don’t give up if His response is not immediate or if it is not what you wanted to hear. Remember, it is God Himself-not His answers-that we seek.

Schedule vs. No schedule

I have read may peoples opinions and views and how they run there house and family on a schedule and they write it down and keep it logged and follow it daily. It sounded good and I decided to try a schedule myself and I just can't get myself to this day to follow one routinely and for a while it upset me emotinally and spiritually. I have come to the determination about myself that I need to learn that what works for another does not necessarally work for me and that I need to stop compareing myself to others.

2 corinthians 12:10
For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.

I do not sit down and write out a schedule but I do have a set of goals that I would like to see done each day and with Gods help I get those things done most of the time. I am a very organized person I just can't seem to follow a schedule to the T without blowing it then thinking of myself as a failure for not following it, so there for I just set focus my mind on what I would like to accomplish that day and I do it.

Daughter not feeling well amoung other things

I did not do a post yesterday because lack of posting insperation and my youngest daughter is not feeling well. A cold has been passed to her along with a bad cough.

I will be back with my normal post tommorow after a long day of rest today on this lords day. Hubby and older daughter left for church this morning and I will be going tonight. We have to go in shifts because not wanting to take younger daughter.

I have a cork board in my kitchen which holds my weekly dinner menu, a kitchen inventory list and any recipes that I may need for that weeks meals that are on my menu and a pen.

Here is a picture of what my cork board looks like at the moment. To the top right is my weekly meal menu I re-do my menus every Monday and to the top left is a kitchen inventory list which is things I need in my kitchen at all times to make it function and it is really just a list of the most basics and then to the bottom right I usually just tack a copy of any recipes that I may need for a meal that week. To the far right I have attached an ink pen with a long string attached to a tack.

I find making and planning menus makes dinner go alot more smoothly and takes away the stress and headache of running around the house asking everyone what they want an hour before dinner.

Frugal living

Top 10 of what I do to live a frugal life

1. Never buy new always get good finds at consignment shops and garage sales

2. Shop sales and clearance buggy.

3. use use use coupons.

4. never pay full price unless you have to.

6. cook everything from scratch. (it's better that way anyways)

7. Make a weekly menu.

8. don't buy more than you have on your grocery list. (thats why we make a weekly menu so we can only buy what we need)

9. always think do i REALLY NEED THIS!

10. Shop around to check out other store prices.

Coupons and freebies

Looking to get Free samples, printable coupons, and the most for your money try checking out some of these great sites.

http://thefreebieblogger.com/category/freebies/, http://www.moneysavingmom.com/

those are just 2 of the most wonderful ones I have found so far and they will lead you to many others. Check them daily for new deals cause they are constantly updated.

WE MUST SEEK JESUS CHRIST DAILY

I can't understand why so many people includeing myself get so frustrated and upset about there walk with God and why it's seems to fail often times. It is OUR OWN FAULT when we fail and we fail because we fail to really seek God to the fullest. We have to seek, yearn after, cry out to, pray to and go to God each day. God needs to be a part of every step we take, every breath we make and everywhere we go.

We are not perfect and never will be and we are human and have emotions but we can not allow our emotions and the lies of the devil to rule us, For there is victory thru Jesus Christ and the word of God. The only reason we fail in life as christians is because we fail with God. We do not really want to read our bible every day and we really do not want to take the time to say a 5 min prayer because we have no care for the things of God and we would rather take the time to tend to our own needs instead of tending to the needs of our spirit that is crying out to know God. We have to get over that lie from the devil and do what we know is best for us and that is to read your bible EVERYDAY not just when you feel like it, pray your way thru the day, pray for others at all times. If you do not have a desire to do any of those things and you call yourself saved or claim to be a christian I would advise you check up on yourself and see if you really are saved to begin with . I go thru my hard times but I do not shout it to the world or complain. It is so sad to see a brother or sister in Christ claiming to be right with God and say they are having victory yet they are struggling in an area That you try to tell them God will help them and they just don't understand or want the help.

Are you making the most of your Home?

As Godly homemakers we should be doing what we can to make home the best place for our family possible. It is a place that we can get together with the ones we love and share Gods love. It is a place of refuge and peace that we can run to from the outside world.

Are you doing the best to make your home a Comfortable environment for your husband and children? Do you have a well organized plan on how to run things? Do you constantly look for new ways to better your home? Do you do the most with what you got? Are you frugal or do you just waste? there are alot of questions to ask yourself. Only God can help us do all those things and for God to speak to us we need to constantly grow in the grace and knowledge of his word about what the bible says a Godly woman is to be and when we do that all else will fall into place easily and we will want to do it all.

I know everyone is different and we are not all the same but we can relate in one way or another. Here are a few things I do to try and keep my home running better and continue to make it better each day.

1. Spend time with God reading and praying everyday.

2.look after my husbands needs- clean cloths, fresh hot meals, clean home and happy smile when he comes home from work each day.


3.look after my children's needs- teach them Gods word, discipline, chores and responsibility and educate them with lots of love and guidance.


4. Take care of my home (palace-- clean, organized and ready for company at all times ( I try hard for that one but can be hard at times to keep up)

On the next post I will go into a bit more detail as to what type of things I do with my children and how I keep my home well organized.

A busy Morning

Im just stoping by for a quick vist as I don't have the time to write an actual post yet. Im off to have lunch here soon with a friend at her house then I have a couple errands to get outta the way. I will be back tonight sometime. God bless and may by the grace of God will you be carried thru this day.

Taking care of the Home a Womans duty

These are not set in stone But only views and things God has allowed me to learn and see as I seek him in prayer and read my bible daily. I'm not writing this to judge anyone nor offend but some may go away thinking so(If you do I'm sorry).

I have not always been a stay at home mom or a stay at home woman at that but have worked all of my life up until I had my first daughter (she is 4). Then I worked on and off for about the first 2 years of her life. During the time I worked I felt as though I didn't want to work outside the home but I also felt as though I didn't want to be home all day not being out in the world working. I finally quit my Job I had at the time and decided that I had had enough and was going to give the stay at home life a chance and see what could be done, It went well for a while then I felt as though I started to get bored with things and I thought surely this is not what God wants me to do stay home all day clean house then sit around being bored, So I ventured out and got another job thinking it would take care of my boredom and give me more money that I thought we needed when all I really needed was to pray and ask God for help. I soon relized after reading my bible and thinking upon what God was trying to teach me that Gods will for my life was to not work but to stay at home and take care of my family and look after my household (my palace).

Now almost 1yr. 1/2 since I have worked and I have a whole new perspective and set of thoughts on what it means to be a stay at home mom. We as married woman are not meant to be out in the wolrd tossed 2 and fro with worldly buisness and taking on the stress of an everyday Job outside of the home.....Our job is the home, It is packed with enough stress, work and care that we as woman are meant to handle. We have a husband who needs our love and attention and children that need our care and concern rather wasteing it all on trying to gain pay raises and promotions in a worldly job.

Homemaking is an art and a skill that only a woman can perfect as her husband stands by her side as her authority and giving the encouragment and help she needs along the way. We have a totally different makeup than men and can take the time to do things in the home that should only have a womans touch ( thats another blog). I take pride, care in concern for all that I do for and in my home. I want my home to be most and foremost clean, warm and inviting to my family and those from the outside that come in so that Gods love can shine through and I can be the witness and ambassador of Christ we are meant to be.

If you are intrested in studying about What a woman in Christ to be there are many scriptures in the bible that I have studied and have been a help to me Titus chpt.2, proverbs chpt. 31 both have played a great role in my life and God has toaught me greatly by them along with many other resources about what we as woman in christ are to be. There is a role and a will for anyone that is willing to seek God and learn what it is.

A little bit about my blog.

Well I told you I would get back and let you know a little bit about why and the way my blog is set up. There is a purpose for everything and a meaning behind all that is posted on my blog I did not just randomly choose and pick things out. It is taking me so long to put this together because I want God to shine through as well as my personality.

First off I call my blog FOLLOW THE SONSHINE because Jesus Christ is the Sonshine we should follow and we need him in every way everyday so it is a bit of a reminder to me each time i see my blog name and a witness and hint to all those that may come about reading this blog. I wanted my blog to be Happy, Cheery and Loud because that's how I am. The Rainbow in the background reminds me of the Rainbow God puts in the sky promising to never again destroy mankind. The bright colors are to just make it look eyecatching.

I plan on blogging about things I learn, Things that intrest me and Things I may learn or find that will help others as well. I love to share what helps me with others and I love to learn from others as well.

Well if I have missed anything I will get to tht later for I have other things to run off and do for now. I enjoy this blog and hope it makes sense to those that read it for I tend to multi task and can leave things half done or unfinished sometimes.

ah early mornings

I have never been a morning person and still convinced im not but I feel a strong tug at my heart and a prompting from the lord that it's the right thing to do. I get up each morning to prepare hubby breakfast and to see him off to work. I then listen to the silence in the house and spend time with the Lord while the children are peacefully sleeping. The more mornings I make it a routine and keep to things I see why the Lord wants it done this way. I love my husband dearly and to know that I have given him a fresh meal and an I love you and warm hug before he heads off to work makes me feel good and to spend time reading my bible and thinking unto the lord really helps my day go well and my spirit start off fresh.

I really seem to sink though when I have those days of failure but those days I have learned to relize God has not seen me as a failure he calls out to me to look forward to the new day I have next and to keep up the good work. We beat ourselfs up to much.

Well off to get some more peace before the little ones awake and the real work begins.

Getting Started

Well I thought about this for a while wheather I should enter the world of blogging and im not to sure how this will turn out being im pretty busy all the time with things going on around the house. I try not to spend to much time on the computer or T.V. cause to me idle time is lazy time and im one for getting things done. I like comming to the end of my day and seeing what I have accomplished instead of being dissapointed in what I didn't get done. My hubby helped me design my page layout, I will tell more about that later. Well off to do other things for now. Gotta make a meal menu and shop the grocery ads before I go out to get grocerys later today.