OK, so I haven't posted because....(sigh) my life is boring. Well not really. By boring I mean nothing new, fun or exciting to post. I have been cleaning, and ummmm cleaning, and, well lets see, cleaning some more! The good news about all this is I have been overwhelmed. Why is that a good thing, you ask? Well let me tell you. God sometimes speaks the most incredible truths into your life during these, "boring" stressful times. I was super stressed the other day, thinking about the big move, and all my cool stuff I am going to miss that's here, and all the dreaded cleaning, to get ready to sell. I sat down for my time of prayer and devotional journal, when I read a cool thing by one of my favorite authors. She said "If you knew you were going to die tonight , what treasure would you leave your loved ones? Something valuable to you, I'm sure. Just before His crucifixion, Christ said :'Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let you hearts be troubled and do not be afraid' (John 14:27). In this verse Jesus left something immensely valuable----peace.
.........For reasons pertaining to eternal glory, Christ may not instantly remove your pain, your thorn, or your sickness, but beloved, regardless of the trial, you can receive His peace. It is your legacy. Your inheritance. Your right. You need not remain in turmoil. Nothing breaks His heart more than our refusal to be at peace in Him. Christ offers you peace. Today and everyday. Claim it now"
After reading that I realized, the only reason I do not have peace is because I am refusing it. NOT because God has not offered it. I can choose to have His peace through these transitions in my life, or not. God you are so good! To even speak to such a pitiful display of a follower like myself is beyond my understanding.
His Peace...
back online!
Dear Wonderful Blog World,
The other day we lost internet in a power outage. This morning my hubby finally got it all figured out and now I am back online. OH how I have missed you sweet blog world! Sweet sweet blog world, never stay so far away again!
love your devoted follower,
Valerie
These are the best of times, these are the worst of times.
First off, I am on a total High right now all due to this blog, go there and read why. LOVE HER!
I am also having a wonderful time tonight because my house is almost completely clean and tidy and ready for the real estate agent tomorrow. It has been a lot of work, but was a little easier tonight since I hired a young homeschooled girl from my church to come help me. She needed money and I needed help, it was a match made in heaven! We worked hard and enjoyed the fellowship. Speaking of working hard, here are some pictures of the kids helping me remove the wallpaper border from their room. Nothing like a good spatula and eager hands to help!
Now for the harder times. I am overwhelmed. Too many unknowns for this fearful gal. I don't like not knowing things. When will we be leaving? Where will we live? Can we take our pets? Will Jake like the job? Will the kids be OK? Will the homeschooling restrictions in Washington affect us? Will we be in a safe neighborhood? Is this going to be a hard trial? Will we ever find a family oriented God fearing church like the one we have now?
Do I sound whiny and distrusting of my Heavenly Father? YES? I probably am. One particular sin that is in my nature is that of whining. I hate that I do that. I have never had such a hard time with a move before. I am, a take things as they come, kick back girl. That is until about 3 years ago, when I let the stresses that were in my marriage and life at the time, overwhelm me. I developed some very bad habits during that time,like WHINING and DISTRUST! I can only laugh as I write this, knowing that the first step to overcoming something is to be able to admit you do it. Boy do I admit it. The Holy Spirit is so good at pointing these things out. I will repent of this tonight and hopefully hand it all over and allow the soothing ointment of Peace, that surpasses all understanding, to take over. Thanks for letting me type that out. I always think cleared after a good blog.
Quiverfull.....?
OK seriously, what is with that word? I love being "Quiverfull", but not a big fan of how that sounds. Labels are hard sometimes. I have never liked labels, probably because more often than not, what I was labeled was negative. In the secular world I was labeled, "punk", "easy", "drunk", "white trash pregnant teen". And although some of those labels rightly described my behavior, they were not who I was. I was created in the image of my maker, and loved dearly by Him. I just hadn't realized it yet. However now that I am a Christian, I have new labels. "Fundamentalist, legalistic, no T.V., Quiverfull, homeschooling, stay at home mom". And once again, although all these do describe part of my behavior, they are not Who I am. I am created in the image of God,and a child of Him who loved me and gave himself up for me. First off, let me say, I am not legalistic. I believe in God's grace fully, and I love that we live under the grace of the New Testament, and not the Law of the old. However I also love God's word, and His word has a lot to say about living and faith, and what it should look like. I take that seriously. I figure if Jesus took the time to talk about how we should live, then we should listen to His wisdom.
So some of you may ask "what in the world does 'Quiverull' mean?" Well my answer to that is another label I have been given......"college drop out" :)
SOOOOOOO since I did drop out of college, I will link you to a blog that is far more eloquent and well spoken than mine will ever be. She describes being Quiverfull in four separate posts and ALL are worth reading. I think if you disagree with being Quiverfull then it is still good to know why some people choose to live and believe this way, so that we can love one another in our differences, through understanding. Click here
I highly suggest reading it. Remember there are four posts (so far).
It's official we are Gypsies!
Ok we are not really Gypsies, because that would be kind of wierd, but we are officially a "wondering race of people".
We are moving.
Was that written with enough excitement???? Maybe not. let's try again
we are moving!!!
OK those exclamations were fake. I want to be excited, I really do. It seems though all I can think about is this is the TENTH move since being married to my husband. Just in case you were wondering, we have been married 8 years! (that exclamation was real). So I am going to do what I tell my children to do and be "Pollyanna" and play the "glad game"
Things to be glad about........
1) Jake got a job
2) We are not moving to the worst place in the world
3) My family is healthy and they are coming with me
4) I will be 5 hours away from a friend of mine and I am excited to see her
5) I enjoy seeing new places and I love adventures (I am certain this will be one)
6) My God goes with me everywhere! So moving doesn't really matter in the long run
7) My mom and sister are excited because they think Washington is way more cool than Arkansas
There we go. I feel a little better now. Now is there a way to somehow have my faithful bloggers help me with a move? OH yes, please pray that the house sells. We sort of need it to sell quick, and I know our Heavenly Father loves you guys so get praying!:)
struggling.
I was hesitant to write something so very personal on here, but what is the purpose of a blog if you can't share your passions, your peeves AND your burdens? As some of you may know, my husband had a Vasectomy Reversal last September. It is a whole huge marvelous story on how we got to that point but I will save that for another time. One week after his surgery I went in for "emergency" (not quite) surgery to have my right ovary removed due to a very large cyst they deemed to be the kind that does not shrink back down. Maybe I should have gotten a second opinion, maybe I should have done lots of things, but either way, last October I had my right ovary taken out. Yet I was STILL convinced I would get pregnant right away. The very first month we tried to conceive I thought for sure It would happen. It did not. And every month at the time of my cycle I am filled with disappointment. But today I have a different feeling. I am upset! I am upset with my self most of all. Why am I so impatient (as my dear friend Candice tells me everyday)? Why do I still spend 10 dollars almost every month on STUPID pregnancy tests??????? Why? Why cant I just let this go. So maybe God is waiting, so maybe we will never be able to have another one, so maybe I should just be happy with the two I have (which by the way, NEVER say that to me, I am a bit touchy when people say that). The thing is, every month I think "this could be the month" and every time I get a negative test or my cycle, I think "I am so stupid for getting my hopes up. I am NOT going to do that next month". I have literally said that EVERY month now for a year. I tell myself not to get upset the next time. Not to get my hopes up. But, I am hopeless, and I do get them up every month. I just don't understand sometimes. I know and truly believe God is good, and loving, and awesome, and His ways are not my ways, and He is trustworthy. Yet still it is hard to accept His ways over mine. I am sorry for how "emotional" of a rant that was, but I just got a negative pregnancy test 25 minutes ago, so I am a litttttttllllleeee sensitive :)
Will you pray with me?
"Lord, please help me be patient. Guide me in handing over my worries and hopes and laying them at your feet. Help me not to pick them back up again, but leave them with you. For you are trustworthy. Help me also to not envy those with the big family I so desire, and to guide my heart to not grow angry with those who can't wait to be done having children, while I yearn until heartbreak, for more. Make me more like you Father. Amen"
pictures are worth more than words
My cuties playing in the driveway while I spray paint a chair(if it looks a little dark, yes it is, and if it looks like my daughter is in her pajamas, yes she is :). I love working alongside my kids playing. OH and there is my cheap plastic chair that I am spray painting to match my front door. I love what 3 dollar bottle of spray paint can do, don't you?
garage sale find
I LOVE GARAGE SALES!!!! OK now that I have that out of my system I just have to add that I am also really lucky when it comes to garage sales (although I use the word luck loosely since I do not really believe in luck. I believe all my finds are a blessing from God himself). Although I love garage sales I rarely get to go. My kids loath going with me and my husband is hardly ever home on Saturdays to watch them. However, when I do get to go, I almost always find what I am looking for. For instance I realized this month the importance of finding another individual school desk. I wanted to pay no more than fifteen dollars. So on my way to the Farmers market I stopped by two garage sales. The first one had nothing I wanted, and the second had a violin that was the next size up for my daughter. My girl is in a quarter size and by this time next year she will be in a half. Wellllll the violin which is $150 new, was priced at the sale for 50 dollars, and I ended up walking away with it for $30, WAHOO!!! Then on my way home from the farmers market I stopped at two garage sales, the first one had nothing and the second, I kid you not, had an old solid oak antique individual school desk for $15!!!! I almost shouted for joy. God is so good. here is a pic of the desk
It's not that pretty to look at now, but when I am finished with it, it will be!
people are so unhealthy!!!!
OK you know when your kids just say the funniest things ever and you just want to roll on the floor laughing? That happened to me the other day in Walmart (but I was able to control myself from rolling on their aisles, dirtyyyy). So my family and I are pretty health conscious. Maybe in California surrounded by vegans and 100% raw food eaters we would not be considered so, but here in the south, we are pretty healthy eaters. We eat lots of whole foods, organic, some raw, and a lot of homemade. I say all that to give you the backdrop to what Ireland said. We were just finishing checking out and Ireland whispers to me, "mom, people are so unhealthy!" I looked to her and asked her why she said that. She answered "mom, just look in their baskets! This one lady had a jar of peanut butter in it and I couldn't believe what it said!". At this point I start to smile because I just think its adorable when children observe things, so of course I asked her what she saw. She practically shouts her whisper while saying "I can't believe that peanut butter company would brag about how unhealthy their peanut butter is. It said right on the front that is was half sugar! Half of the jar was nothing but sugar! I can't believe people would buy such a thing." At first I didn't understand and then it hit me, she had seen one of those jar's of peanut butter that is labeled "1/2 the sugar". However she read it, "1/2 sugar". I had to work so hard to contain my laughter so that I would not embarrass her. Sooooooooo funny. I love having kids.
my "hole" in the wall
OK this is primarily for my very best friend Candice, whom I have been promising forever to show a picture of what we did to our wall. We had a nice big solid wall between our living room and our dining room, and in a house that is 1300 sqft, that sort of needs to be opened up a bit. So hubby and I took a hammer to it. Soooooo several days, one very fun realization that it is a LOAD BEARING wall, and 10 trips to ACE hardware later, and this is the result.
how we homeschool
I title this "how we homeschool" while laughing. I was teaching the kids the other day and it was raining and I was needing a break, so I told the kids to go outside when it lets up, and play for "recess". So they went outside and stood on chairs so that they could "shake" all the rain off the tree onto themselves. After watching them do this for 20 or so minutes, I began to wonder about how my neighbors think I homescool. I couldn't help but laugh.
And after all that time making such a nice school room for them, THIS is how they want to do their school work
