giveaway notice...

Hey, I just wanted all of you to know that there is an awesome giveaway that you really need to check out. go to www.safethusfar.blogspot.com Great giveaway for those of you that are interested.

Thanks,
Jamie

The Mother Letter Project...

I was reading on one of my favorite blogs Saturday. I love reading blogs during my "free" time. As a mother, I am always thinking and reading up on ways to make my day go easier, less hectic. Also, how to handle my day with grace and honor. So, when I read about The Mother Letter Project, I immediately, without hessitation sent in my letter. I really suggest you go to this blog, read about how to submit your letter.

To give you a little info about the project... A husband and wife have decided not to buy Christmas gifts for each other this year, instead they will send any money that they would have spent on each other to Africa to help the children. Also, they decided to make each other gifts this year. So, his idea... The mother letter project. You see, she is a mother with small children, and he wants people to submit letters of encouragement to her. How great of an idea is that??? I am swooning right now. You have a couple of weeks to get them to him. And, as an added gift, he will send you a copy of the completed letters after Christmas. So, you could say that it is not only a gift for his wonderful wife, but to all of us. I am so excited that a husband really loves his wife enough to do this for her.
www.motherletter.blogspot.com/
Have a blessed day... Jamie

Home, sickness and friendship

I am getting more and more excited as the days pass. We have found a house, or as we have deemed it, our HOME! We intend on moving the first weekend in December. Along with moving, we have decided that we will homeschool the kids. From what I have read, the local schools there are not very appealing to us. It is in a different county than where we live now. Yey us!! I have been so giggly about it over the past week, planning the decorating, planning the school curriculum. I find myself really enjoying all the God is calling me to do.

The children have all been sick this week. On Monday it was Hannah and Dale,along with my husband. Tuesday was Hannah again, then Wednesday they gave me a break. So, Thursday it was Lilly's turn. Beleive it or not, I actually prefer that they all get sick together. Otherwise, it seems to drag out for a month or so. So, this way, totally works for me. The girls helped me make homemade chicken noodle soup tonight. That seemed to have made everyone feel better. Well, today at least.

On a different note, although I haven't called her yet ( horrible friend I am) Becky seems to be doing great. She is really researching all of the medicines that they have put her on, and also her *disease. I am so proud of her. She isn't letting this thing bring her down. She seems like she actually has a sense of humor about it... wink.

Again, thanks to all of you that continue to pray for Becky, her family, myself along with my family. We are all so grateful for your thoughts and prayers.

Praise God!!

So, my friend had her procedure yesterday. As most of you know her as Becky. They told her that in fact she did not have a heart attack, she has Post Partum Cardiomyopathy. You can read her blog to get the more in depth description of what it is. www.mycrazylife-mommy2alj.blogspot.com/

I want to thank everyone that has prayed for her, you cannot imagine how much it means to her. She told me last night that so many people have called and came by the hopsital to visit her that we will have to rent the Civic Center when she dies. She has such a great personality. I love her.

If I find time to blog again this afternoon, I will. Until then, I have some Tackle it Tuesday projects to do. I am so excited about getting some of these things done. I have been putting them off for too long now.

Jamie

Praying for a friend...

I have a friend. One that I had gone to school with for middle and high school. After we graduated, we went about our own lives, getting married, having children. You know, just life. During the last few years, we have had some communication with each other. The typical "Oh how your children have grown." type thing. Well, within the last several months, I have really come to grow in my own life, and have done so with the help of this friend. She is such a great inspiration to me.

She has gone through so much for such a young age, more than anyone else that I know. In going through all of this, she never led her own path, she ALWAYS let God lead her. That is such a big thing to me. Such a big thing. I have asked her, how she can go through the constant trials and never doubt God's will. She simply states, it is his will, his plan, his timing. It is crazy for me to try to tell God how to do His job. She is so right.

I am so guilty of trying to do things my way, and tell myself that I shouldn't bother Him with this little thing, or that. That is why He is here for us. We need to lean on Him during the bad and praise him during the bad, along with the good times as well. We all too often let the days go by without really thanking Him for all of the things in our lives. We need to be grateful that we get to wake up and experience all that life has to offer, good and bad.

So, I got the feeling that something wasn't right with my frend, so I e-mailed her. She answered back a few hours later...My feelings were right. She was in the hospital. She had a heart attack and didn't know it. At 31 years old, a single mother, a pre-school teacher, and no health insurance. I immediatley told my husband that I needed to go to the hospital to see her, he read her message and said to me, "Go now!" To be honest with you, I only skimmed the message, after reading the opening line..." I am in the hospital, I had a heart attack" I only skimmed from that point on. I got to the hospital last night right at 8:00 pm, just at the end of visiting hours, but they let us in anyway... I took another friend with me. We went in the room, and she giggled. Wheww! She was in awe that I came to see her. She was waiting on me to message her back... how funny. In all of this, she is still. Still in God's arms and in his plan. That just blows my mind!! She knows that He will take her to where she needs to be. Again, his will, his plan, his timing. What a great servant she is. An absolute inspiration to me.

We sat there while she told us what had happened. I was amazed that they don't know how this could have happened to her, the fact that she didn't know she had a heart attack, and what they plan on doing next. The doctors told her that it had to have happened about 3 weeks ago. She can't remember having any symptoms 3 weeks ago, other than a bad headache. She is scheduled to have a heart catherization this afternoon at 3 pm. I will be praying for her. I pray for her children. I pray for God's will, his plan, his timing.

Please, if you feel the calling, lift her up today. I will attatch a link (if I can figure out how to do that) to her blog. Read it for yourself and you will see just how inspiring she can be. http://www.mycrazylife-mommy2alj.blogspot.com/

God bless,
Jamie

House hunting

We have found a very cute house that we really like. It is an old country house, that we would love to make our home. We continue to pray about our finances. We have money coming in every week and need to really be vigilant about paying all of our bills on time. We are still trying to play catch up on a few of them, but all in all, our money seems to be getting it done. Slowly, but at least they are getting there. We need to come up with about $2500 in order to secure getting the house. Please pray for us, we are really needing to get out of where we are now. I will keep the blog updated when I get further into this process. I am praying that we are in a home before Christmas. I feel like my children need that.

Thanks for taking time to read this, you don't know how much it means to me. Just to be able to write things down and not feel judged is wonderful for me. It is a great help to my sanity. Ha ha.

Tackle it Tuesday

So, my project for today is getting my girls' room in order. We have let their room go over the past few weeks, so Mommy is "cleaning out". A much needed task. I am most excited about this for some reason. Maybe I am just tired of having to guess what I am stepping on in there. The entire floor is covered with toys, clothes and who knows what else. Wish me luck, I pray that I don't find anything that will make my stomach turn flips. I guess I really should have taken a picture before I started, so that I could post it for all to see, but that would embarass me too much. Anyway, good luck with your Tuesday projects.

How do you lead a lost child?

As some of you know, I have a child, 16 girl, that came to me when she was 6 years old. She is my husband's child from a previous marriage. She lives with her mother and where she lives, we are about 25 minutes away from her. Due to certain happenings, we have had a strained relationship at times, and at other times, we are her "best friends".

We have always dealt with the problems of a divorce. The hurt, the pain, the anger, the hardship of having to take your child "home" from a weekend with you. We have dealt with the pain and anguish of our children that we have together as well. They don't understand why she can't just stay with us, they adore her.

Two years ago, she came to live with us. We enrolled her in our local middle school, and she way thriving. We can never seem to get on a good path because her mother always seems to have issues with whatever we try to instill. We were accused of being too hard on her, too many rules, not enough trust in the child to make the right choices. Just as we started to make headway, it happened. The mother jumped in, and stirred the trouble pot and off we were. Just as quickly as she came to be with us, she was gone. The mother didn't just stop there. She made as much trouble as she possible could for my husband. She even reported him to the child support recover agency, stating that he didn't pay her the support during the time that the child lived with us. Yeah, you read that right.

So, now 2 years later, the child is growing into young adulthood and seems to be at a cross roads in life. Go one way, the right way, or go down the wrong path. How do you direct a lost child, when you don't have any day to day access to the child? How do you keep that child encouraged to make the right choices when you really want to be in their face everyday holding them accountable for the choices that they are making? How can you be the parent that you need to be, when you have spent years on the sidelines? We have been on the sidelines, not by choice, but by being forced there by the mother. No matter how many times we have tried to talk to her about the child, and what we feel she needs, she answered by telling us that we have no say in the matters. We cannot control what rules are set forth in her home. I understand that, but when it comes to the well being of your child, and obviously she isn't making wise choices, you re-adjust and alter the rules set forth. Not every child is the same ,so the rules that are put together for one child, may not be the same rules that you will use for all of your children. Each have their own personalities and learning styles.

So, I ask the question again, how do you lead a lost child to make the best choices? How do you walk that fine line between being a parent and a friend to your children? I know that I was not made a parent by God to be that child's friend... I am a parent first! I will not always be the "cool parent" either. I only want what is best for my children. I want them to go forward in life and be productive, happy individuals that love their lives and most importantly, the Lord.

This is a round about the "speech" that we gave her last night. Please let me know what you think...

Every time you follow someone Else's way, you lose a little piece of yourself. With every boy friend that you have, you give away a piece of yourself. So by the time that you find your "Prince Charming, how much of you does he get? Every time you have sex, smoke that cigarette, drink that alcohol, you lose a little piece of yourself. Every time you cuss, steal, break the rules, you lose a little piece of yourself. How much of your True self are you willing to forfeit for approval of others? It is not the approval of your peers that you need. It is only God's approval. So what if you aren't one of the cool kids, so what if you don't feel like you have the right style of clothes. So what if they don't like you because you won't break curfew and drink. These are the choices that you have to make in order to grow not only personally, but spiritually as well. You do not have anyone in your life right now to hold you accountable for the choices that you are making. You need to find someone, anyone, that will truly hold you accountable for your actions and choices. Someone that will be in your face telling you the truth about what you are doing, not sugar coating it for you. You are at a cross roads in you life right now, so you need to decide which path you are going to take. You, and only you are responsible for the choices that you make. Therefore, you cannot blame anyone else for the consequences of those choices. Good or bad, they are yours. You take ownership of everything that you do. You were given the same gift that everyone else way, free will. It is what you do with that that counts.

So, I am taking this as a personal task to lead and guide this lost child to make the right choices in life. I will not count myself a failure if she doesn't. After all, like we told her, the choices are hers to make. She holds the power within herself to take the right path. Only she can choose which way to go from here. But, I can be there cheering her on, supporting her, encouraging her.

In love,
Jamie

Southern Academy Homeschool Co-Op

So, although I am sending my two girls to public elementary school. I do homeschool my son, who is 3. He had a blast with his color pages today. He helped me pick out the ones that he wanted to color, and went to town on them. He really gets his feelings hurt when he doesn't stay in the lines, but he is learning. He is doing so well with his fine motor skills today. I think tomorrow I will have him sit to the table and sort beans. He loves working with his hands. He learns just like I do, very hands on.

I want to know is any other moms out there want to get together every week for a co-op of sorts. I know that there are already many in our community, but I don't know anyone in them. I only have the little one, so for me it would be easy to get involved at this level. Hopefully next school year I will have my girls homeschooled too. Please let me know if you are interested in doing this. I think it could be alot of fun and we could do field trips as well.

Thanks,
Jamie

I wanted to show you my little darlings from Halloween this year. Of course not one of them would stand still long enough for me to take a decent picture, but hey, they had candy on the brain...They had so much fun, but nearly froze to death while trick or treating. Hannah and Lilly went as Princesses, and Dale was a ninja. The costumes were not my first choice, but that's what my mom bought for them... L-R Hannah, Dale, Lilly

Easy kitchen ideas...

Hi everyone. I have been baking bread tonight, so my loving husband cooked dinner for us while I was kneading my dough. How sweet is he! Anyway, I got to thinking of the times when my schedule is running a bit too busy and I don't have alot of time to cook dinner. I have come up with several ways to "add" time to my day when it comes to the kitchen.

One way I save or add time in the kitchen is to do as much in advance as possible. For instance, when I purchase ground hamburger meat for Spaghetti or chili, I go ahead and brown all of it, then split the already browned meat up into sandwich or quart sized ziploc bags. Then put them in the freezer. Since the browning of the meat is the longest process for spaghetti, in my opinion, that is already done. All I do is empty the frozen meat in the pot of sauce, if I don't have any ready made sauce available, and start my noodles. By the time the noodles are done, the meat has defrosted and the sauce has warmed through enough for us to eat. Also, I have started using angel hair pasta, so they cook faster than the regular spaghetti noodles.

Another way to save time is to freeze spaghetti sauce that has the meat already added to it. This makes for easy meals, in minutes. When I make spaghetti, I tend to make more sauce than I need and just freeze the left overs. I have also come up with an easy lasagna recipe, shown below. (The picture above this post is my lasagna.) I can throw this together in minutes and bake within 45 minutes. Dinner in a flash. For those of you wondering, I think that as long as you can get dinner on the table in less than an hour, that is pretty much considered a flash to me. Especially when you consider how many people I cook for everyday. Try this recipe, I hope you like it, and please let me know what you think.

Easy Lasagna

1 box Lasagna noodles

2 quarts of Spaghetti sauce with meat

4 cups of shredded mozzarella cheese

In a 9 x 13 casserole dish, first put down a layer of sauce. Then add a layer of noodles, then cheese. Repeat this until you have filled the dish, ending with a layer of cheese. I cover mine with foil until the last 5-7 minutes, then uncover to brown the top. I usually have enough to make 2 9 x 13 dishes with this amount of noodles, sauce and cheese.

Once you have layered all of the ingredients, bake at 375 degrees for 45 minutes. You can also cut baking time down to 30 minutes if the sauce is already hot and the noodles are cooked in boiling water on stove top.

I have found that 1 of the 9 x 13 dishes can feed 12 servings, since we usually offer salad and bread with this dish.

I hope you enjoy this, we sure love it. Even my picky eaters will devour lasagna if it is made this way.

Trying to find my light.

As I continue to write online, I have come to see that I am trying to find my light. I was watching a movie today and that was the "theme" for the movie, to find the light. It got me wondering about my own light. What it is for, because we all have a light. It is just a matter of how we chose to use it, how we learn from it. I believe that our God, Jesus Christ gave us our light, and meant for it to serve a specific purpose. All of us have our own purpose, but also the same. We are to serve our God, to do what is right and just. I haven't been very good at this yet. That does not mean that I am doomed to hell for not using my light the way it was meant to. I know that my God, who is faithful and true, will give me time to "get it right".

I have had so many chances to enlighten myself, but have not taken advantage of any of them. Why do we go through life with the attitude that we can do it, meaning life, alone? We have a God for a reason, and we need to be leaning on him, praising him in every aspect of our life. Lift up praise to him when we are doing right, and doing wrong. We need to remember that He has a plan and purpose for us, and we need to seek him for guidance in order to find it. And then, accomplish it.

I plan on aspiring to bigger and better things for myself. I am trying to come into the woman that God intends for me to be. The wife and mother that I was made to be, the steward that I need to be. I am praying that he guide me along my path and speak to me when I need encouragement to stay on it. I pray that I do not falter. Everyday, each one of us has our trials and we need to encourage each other too. We need to lean on each other, and to pray for one another. I am blessed to have friends that listen to my trials and help me to see that they are there and happening for a reason. Thank you to all that help me. I am truly thankful to have you in my life.

On other news, My husband has found another job. He was offered a job in Savannah, so we are staying in this area. He feels like it was God calling him to stay here. Seeing as the job offer came so quickly and also offered more money than what he was making. In this economy, that was a huge blessing. So for now, we are content that God made this decision for a reason. We are praying that he lead us to the home we are supposed to be in. We have been living with my parents since April of this year and feel like it is time for us to move out. We just need God's guidance in where that should be, and also if it is His will for us to move out yet. So, as we continue to pray about these things, we also pray for our personal relationships with our Savior.

Thanks for reading, and hope that you will come back again soon. I promise to add things that will not only be about our religion, but also about being a stay at home mother, and wife, clearance shopping and coupon shopper. I love to bake, so recipes will be added too. I am trying to learn how to sew, so maybe some postings on what I am sewing. Also, trying to learn how to upload pictures to my postings, so bear with me. Feel free to add me to your favorites, or follow my blog. I love helping when I am led to do so.

I look forward to posting again. Maybe even another one today, if I can figure out the picture thing.

Jamie