Extra in The Ordinary

I've always been a "career woman". I love working and love business. This was good for our family to help us get to a certain point financially because I needed to be a co-provider.... But then.... The girls were getting older (9 and 12), and we had just paid off most of our bills (all but the house). I got a text from my husband in the middle of the work day letting me know that we had reached our goal and could operate with a single income pretty easily if we wanted to. Wow, then I had a decision to make.  The first decision was  going part time or staying home completely? I decided to only stay home completely if I homeschooled . Otherwise I'd rather have a part time job to stay productive.  The only thing I can say is that I had a sense that these girls were going to be out of the house before we knew it, and my memories with them would be limited to 6-9pm on weekdays and the weekends. I just felt like we needed more time together. I also have a pretty clea...

Punkin' prayed for snow. Her homeschool lesson mentioned snow in Africa, on Mount Kenya (which was unheard of), so that gave her hope.  She watched White Christmas (twice) and decided to stay positive. When the weather mentioned a 10% chance, she just KNEW it would happen. And it did!! Friday December 8th...snow in Houston! She stayed up until 11pm watching it fall then woke up at 3am to look at the blanket of white. She was in it making snow balls and playing with IPK (big sister) by 5am. I helped them make a snow man AFTER I had a full cup of coffee in me. Geez- these kids wake up early when they are excited!! This is the 6am shot...just to show that there really was a slight blanket of white! :)

Jim Rohn says your personal philosophy (what you believe) is the way we set the sails of our life. It will determine the direction we will go. What philosophy is setting your sails? For many years I've drifted without really setting my sails towards a purposeful direction or clearly defined philosophy. Yes. I've drifted WITH God towards gratitude,abundance, blessings, faith, knowledge (of Him), hard work, and love , but if I'm honest with myself....I've drifted. I've used my busy schedule as an excuse not to grow in a clearly defined, purposeful direction. But God knows when we are drifting, and when it's time to set the sails. Today I  was reading a Holistic Anatomy book, and my beliefs were clarified before my eyes as I read the pages. The page right after the references to earth energy, evolution, and  the book described the "amazing DESIGN of a semipermeable cell membrane". Did you get that? The amazing design!  The existence of design natu...

Every year I take off a week in the summer to take my kids to VBS at our church. This year, I decided that going to VBS was not enough. I had to make it interesting. So I volunteered to co teach a VBS class. We asked for a class of older kids. I was thinking maybe kindergarteners or maybe 3rd grade. No, it was the 3 year olds class that needed teachers, so we accepted the "job" and started planning. Getting ready to teach VBS took 13 weeks of planning time. It took calls, emails, shopping trips, to do lists, and filling out planning worksheets. I think I started over with the planning sheet 3 times to get a clean copy. And then I didn't even use it the week of. We were too busy taking care of 3 year olds! The theme this year was "Even the Winds and the Waves Obey Him". We talked about God's power over creation, his power over the floods (Noah), the plagues, and the storms in the sea of Galilee. It was a powerful topic, and I think it spoke to the kids as...

Funny story ( this was the extra in my ordinary this week!! )..... I was taking dirty laundry to the garage on Wednesday night. I rounded the corner too quickly, stepped on a water puddle beside the dog's water bowl (on tile floors), and went barreling down to the floor and directly smacked my left knee on the tile as my ankle and toes were crunched in the process. It felt like slow motion, and as I laid there alone watching my knee swell and wondering if I was about to have to go to the ER,....I realized I fell because I was rushing, and trying to do too much on my own. Ouch. That realization hurt as much as my knee. Talk about a wake up call. Doing too much by myself too fast = falling and getting hurt. !! I do this all the time. Do you? As women I think we have it in our DNA to multitask, and to try to get too much done, and then we get hurt. Speaking of trying to do too much ....have you read about Mary and Martha, when Martha invited Jesus over to her house? It went kind...

This week my family has been enjoying this song, because I have been playing it over and OVER! I think they call the a brain itch (when you can't get enough of a song). Any ways, this song is so beautiful, and full of truth. I think you will really enjoy it, but first I'll explain it a little bit, and why it speaks to me.  The song is a metaphor, showing how learning to trust God can feel like walking out into an ocean of water. Have you ever felt like you were in over your head? Like you were thrown into the deep end of the waters, and it felt like your feet couldn't touch the bottom? I've felt like that when my dad left my mom for another woman, and we found out he wasn't who we thought he was. I was about 27, but I felt like a 7 year old, crying for her daddy. My family lost a strong spiritual leader. The ground beneath my family broke apart, and we could either fall, or find something to hold on to. It was only at that time, and in that situation that I figur...