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.