Season 6 Episode 15

I know I've been kinda absent lately. Just been going through my things on a private plane. It's weird, sometimes I'm totally outgoing, others I just retreat.

Tonight I've been watching Extreme Makeover Home Edition. I'm not in the habit of watching it, as I just don't watch much TV. But this particular episode that aired Sunday featured Chapman. Chapman is a small town about 30 miles SE of Manhattan. When the Tornado came through back in June, before taking out a section of Manhattan, it basically completely leveled Chapman. It took out both schools, and just left a lot of people devastated.

You know, it's different watching that show, when you recognize the businesses that helped out. Most of those businesses are located in Manhattan. A lot of the volunteers came from Manhattan. And it's a fabulous thing, that the show acts as the gathering force to orchestrate the coming together of so many people, but it truly is the people, the volunteers that make that whole thing possible.

It was kinda weird also, to see the interview parts in the first section of the show that took place on Ft. Riley. My friend Chara used to live in that same neighborhood that the family lived in. I drive through another that was shown on the show a good percentage of my visits. It's just different when it's so close to home, and not a bunch of people that live somewhere else you've never heard of.

Anyhow, if you want to see what I'm rambling about head over to abc.go.com and check out Episode 15. It brought tears to my eyes more often than I'd like to admit.

New Years Resolutions

Yeah... so it seems a bit late for New Years Resolutions, but these aren't mine, they are apparently my seven year old's. Yesterday while going through his backpack, I found it, and I just had to share!

On the paper it says he's looking forward to 2009, and here's why. He'll be 8 years old, he hopes to grow 2 inches. He hopes he gets better at behaving at school (this is something he's struggling with). But at the very bottom is what made me smile from ear to ear. "This year I plan to do some of my favorite things: love on my mom."

Come on now! I want to hear all the "awwww"s. He pretends to be hard and tough on the outside, but deep down he's a softy!

Today I have two Sunday School lessons to prepare and a presentation to give to the congregation. But my mind is just not cooperating. I can't seem to focus on anything. I think it's the messed up sleep schedule that's taking it's toll on me. :(

Just sharing...

Uh-oh. Looks like I'm becoming a once a week blogger! Well, it happens to the best of us from time to time. The Lord's been working on me and I've realized I have to prioritize things in my life. With four kids, a hubby, children's ministry, crazy dog, and household duties... it just goes on and on. But you know, God is good... and as long as I continue to seek after His will, things will be all right.

I've been struggling a lot lately on my scrapbook business I'm trying to get off the ground. Okay, ex that... wanting to get off the ground, cause let's face it, I haven't spent much time on it at all. I've been feeling so much guilt over that. I don't want to give it up, because it is something I love so much, not to mention I am notorious for starting ventures and not seeing them through. But with prayer and Godly friends, I've finally come to a decision.

Our woman's group at church is doing a study about true freedom in Christ. Previously when I'd hear the word "captive" I'd think something big. Like a childhood trauma that you can't seem to shake, or drug use, or alcohol, something like that. But I've come to understand that anything in your life that does not allow you to live in the fullest riches of Christ, a Spirit filled life is a sort of captor. For me... that's my busy schedule.

Let's take yesterday for example. (Warning, I know this is already a boring post, but it's about to get worse!) Hubby's alarm went off at 4am, and I struggled to get back to sleep. Finally got up just before 7am. Get the kids off to school and return home for an hour to do speech exercises with my youngest. Head out the door to run some errands, pick up some silk flowers for the church, go to library story time with my daughter, head out to base to have lunch with my hubby, go into walmart for a few necessities. We returned home for an hour, of which I spent making sandwiches for the evening and watched a tiny bit of the inauguration activities. Then it was promptly off to pick up my children, drive out to Wamego for Kirsten's gymnastics, do homework with the boys while we're there, get Johnathan to Takewando, let Michael eat his food. Load them all back into the van allow the rest of the kids to eat while we're on our way to Michael's basketball. Drive out to meet hubby in Manhattan where we traded vehicles and thankfully (oh so very thankfully) I was able to go to women's bible study. But in a week hubby leaves, again, for six weeks, so it's back to doing it on my own. Anyhow, I return home at 9pm. A good 13 hours after I left in the morning.

Life is just busy! Sure, not all my days are spent out of the house, but there are times when I allow that busy-ness to overwhelm me. I loose my joy, loose sight of what is truly important in life. When I reach the end of my life, will my biggest regret be not pursuing my business? No. I will be happy knowing that my children had a mother that they knew without a shadow of a doubt loved them. I don't want to be that mom that is only there to yell at and correct them when they do wrong. Likewise I want to be the wife that the husband looks forward to coming home to. My family is my most important ministry. They have to come first.

So anyhow... as to my decision. I'm giving myself the six weeks hubby is gone to get my act together. With him gone I'll have my evenings to myself (that's the theory any way) and I should be able to get it all up and running. I'm praying that if God wants this in my life, then He will go before me and smooth out the bumps. If this is not something in his will, then I want a whole lot of obstacles in the way so it will be obvious to me.

Any whoo... I'm not sure where all that came from. lol I'd just like to point you to the text below the "Simply Shenanigans"... ramblings... questionable sanity... yeah. That's my disclaimer! This week, I'm praying for my friend J... may contractions come and you have that little one! My friend Lisa... praying for God's provision and peace in your lives, and a clear vision for you to return! My friend Nona... keep her, her boys (including hubby) safe. My church kids... may they get excited about the party we're going to be throwing, and the congregation as well. And myself... may I keep first things first, and second things second!

A little bit frustrated

I'm just a little bit frustrated. It seems we have this bright ideas, and they just don't come to fruition. Hubby and I had been working the phone this last week, wanting to refinance our house since interest rates are so low right now. We qualify for big loans, but we don't have enough equity in our home. So it looks like right now we're stuck with our 7. and 8. APR home loans. It's just very frustrating, because three years ago they loaned us the money for the very same house that now they're saying no to.

Yesterday I spent two hours adding inventory to my new store site. I had gotten the mental determination to do it. Then I decided to check how it was looking. Borked. It is all borked. When you click on an item it just bring up a blank page which is frustrating the heck out of me. Things that worked before now didn't, and I was upset to say the least. I walked away from it and promptly wasted an hour and a half playing on the wii. It's just got me wondering if this business is in God's plans for me. I thought it was, but maybe I was listening to my own heart and my own desires. I don't know. I'm just growing frustrated.

Oh and add the fact that something is wrong with my s key on my keyboard. I have to press it harder than normal for it to register. I'm a rather quick typer, and this just throws me off. I guess the bright side is I'll have an extra strong ring finger!

The events of today are kind of up for grabs. I have to spend time working with Caitlin on her speech patterns. Her teacher said it seemed she went backward Tuesday, so we have to spend extra time working on it at home. There's eating at school with the kids today, Taekwando, and a meeting at 7pm. Maybe add in there trouble shooting my website to see what the heck I did wrong. I really don't want to start it from scratch all over again!

Well, the first child just crawled out of bed, time to get the day going!

Weird Feeling

Well, hubby went off to work this morning. It's a weird feeling in the house, just me, my youngest and the dog. It's quiet, it's weird. On my to-do list is catching up with dishes and laundry, hopefully figuring out the shipping modules on my new website I'm building. But I'm so tempted to waste the day away. Oh... sooooo tempted.

Not a lot going on today. I think I'm going to put my Toby Mac CD in, maybe some upbeat tunes will help get me into gear.

First Game

This morning Michael had his first Basketball game. For the longest time it looked like there wasn't going to be a Saint George team due to a lack of coaches. His first practice was Tuesday, this morning his first game.



He's the one on the far left with the ball. You know, it's hard to get good pictures when it comes to sports! Anyhow, for the last year and half Kirsten & Johnathan have had extra activities, poor Michael hasn't. It was nice to be able to cheer for him and his team. Unfortunately they didn't win, but they had fun and the coaches now know what areas to coach on Tuesday.

Not a whole lot going on here. Hubby goes back to work on Monday, so we're just trying to enjoy the last two days together.

Hubby's new red head

First off, I totally do not intend to offend anyone! I apologize if I do, this is totally in jest!

About 4 years ago, we were living in Germany, we had some friends over. The wife and her daughter were in the house with me and our kids while our husbands were out in the parking lot working on hubby's old Mazda. He paid $600 bucks to purchase it, and countless hours afterwards. This is the car that hubby got pulled over in, not because he was cruising at 120mph on the autobahn, but because it was so loud!

Anyway, whatever hubby and his friend were working on that day, they were having a hard time. Hence the car was labeled as a "red head" because of it's bright red paint job and men's tendency to refer to their cars as females. That day a new joke was born between us, my husband's difficult red head would be the butt of many jokes.

After the red Mazda he had a BMW (we were in Germany, they were cheap there!), which wasn't red. But after that was a red Toyota Celica, which had it's share of difficulties, and now we have just traded in our minivan for yet another "red head".



It's a '98 Dodge Dakota Sport. Hubby claims he doesn't even care for the color red on vehicles. "I like blues and greens." he'll proclaim. Yet he keeps buying red vehicles!! Hubby loves Dodge Dakotas. Back in the day we had a black one that was slightly raised, had roll bars and lights. He loved that truck, but we had to sell it when we found out I was pregnant with Michael. He's in a mini heaven having a Dakota again. Though he'll say "it's not that nice", he had no problem parking it on the very very edge of the drive way so it wouldn't get hit by the door of a behemoth of a van when the kids get out. lol

Anyhow, we ended up having to take out a small two year loan to cover it. In doing so, hubby has to quit smoking. He had successfully quit before his R&R, was smoke free for near four months. But once he went back to Iraq, he started smoking again. So I know he can quit, but I'm worried about him actually doing it. The end of this month he leaves for Alabama for a six week class, he's planning on quitting then so we don't have to be around his grumpy, going through withdrawals self. So if you pray, please pray for him. He's gonna need it!

Happy 2009

Happy 2009 y'all! Sorry I haven't been around much. With the kids out of school, and all their extra activities put on hold this week, we've been living a relaxed lazy life. It's been good to have some unwinding time. It hasn't all been easy though, Nahla decided to put a 3" hole in our carpet while we were at church last Sunday. You know, most puppies chew on furniture or shoes. Not ours, no, she hasn't destroyed a couch or chair, not a single shoe has been harmed despite there being 8 pairs sitting in the living room. Nope, instead she puts a hole in our carpet. Needless to say, our restraint was seriously challenged!

Lately I've been trying to work on my website. Finally got Magento installed. That thing has so many bells and whistles, it's like a little kid in a candy store. But unfortunately all those bells and whistles make it's learning curve extremely steep. I have spent days on this app, and I'm still not close to being able to launch it. Hopefully I'll get it up by the end of the month. We shall see!

So unfortunately, my beloved hobby of card making has kind of gone on the back burner for right now. Next week the kids go back to school, and all their activities start up. Kirsten will be going to a different gymnastics school. This one with older equipment but far more experienced and qualified coaches. I am looking forward to that! Michael starts the basketball season, he's completely stoked about that. And we're trying to transfer Johnathan to a different location for his Taekwando. It's owned by the same person, but has different instructors and I'm not quite so thrilled with that. I have the highest of regards for his current instructor, he is really talented at what he does and knows how to interact with a trying seven year old boy. I worry that I won't be happy with anyone who's slightly less capable of juggling so many roles.

So that's what's going on. Not a whole lot, and I'm enjoying it. The crazy hectic life is due to resume on Tuesday, we'll see how I survive. lol