Hearts in Service Blog

I've been tagged by Michelle and I am supposed to list 7 random things about myself so here it goes! 1. I was a psychology major in college. 2. I HATE brussel sprouts! 3. I once stopped a man beating up a woman on the street in our last ministry. (It was his girlfriend) 4. I'm petrified of spiders. 5. I have to sleep with the sheets up around my neck or I don't feel comfortable. (Besides, sleeping like this will keep any ax murderers at bay) - LOL! 6. Lilacs are my favorite flower. 7. When I hang up clothes on the line, they all have to be facing the same direction. There. Now you know how quirky I really am. :-)

We've had so much rain this winter and more is expected this week. What do you do to stay entertained in a very small house when it's rainy? Play games. Type stories on the computer. Read. Eat As you can see, things have not been very exciting around here! :-)

Dan decided to teach Emily some wrestling moves today. It was the funniest thing and she had me laughing so hard. It actually worked and she was able to take down whoever she was wrestling in a minute flat. First it was Dad. Then Nathan. Then Stephen. Then the boys got into wrestling Dan. However, Emily came out on top! LOL!

My husband and children are a pretty thoughtful bunch. They help me out so much during the day and so I thought I'd just show you a bunch of random pictures I got of them over the past month or so being kind. Doing dishes. Cleaning up her room. Helping Dad with the car. Making a salad. The thing that I feel so blessed about is that they actually love to help. Dan just naturally does it and the kids are always cheerful and eager to help. I know that can be a rarity in this day and age!

Okay, a friend of mine today told me how she does a ten minute tidy in her home. Thanks, Jenni :-)! So I decided to implement it. How it works is you set a timer for 10 minutes and you and the children pick up as much as you can in 10 minutes. I used to do this when they were younger but had forgotten all about it. Silly me! It worked wonderfully. Here are the before pictures. This counter top is a dumping ground for everything. Believe it or not, it actually looks much better than it did a few days ago. Okay, it looks like the computer is a dumping ground too. Piano books never seem to make it back to the shelf where they belong. The table collects clutter also. We set the timer and were off! Here are the final results. Emily wanted to pose :-). Also, the coat hanger is substituting for the antenna that snapped off the radio. Dan came home about 5 minutes after we finished and asked if I cleaned the house. LOL! See, 10 minutes can look like you cle...

I realized the other day that all of the sudden I was seeing signs of spring. First of all, the birds are back. In the past few days I've seen robins, mourning doves, sparrows, and red-winged blackbirds among a few. The best thing for me in the morning is lying in bed when I first wake up and hearing the mourning doves' sorrowful cry. Also, I've seen signs of Spring in all different shades of green. It's coming slowly and you have to look hard but it's there. It's still only been in the high 30s and low 40s all week but Spring is definitely on the way! Buds on the trees We have grass! This is the north so we probably have another month to go before it really feels spring-like but I'm so glad it's coming :-)!

Charlie, an amazingly cool guy from church, invited Dan to bring the boys to help him tile a floor. They were so excited to go and spent all day yesterday and this morning helping him. Dan's job was to go get donuts and coffee - LOL! Charlie instructing Nathan. What am I supposed to do with this? Good job, boys. The almost finished product. So they had fun and helped someone out. I think it was an overall good experience!

For those of you praying for our church plant we got the word from our district office and they said, "No." to the garage. They didn't have a peace about it after praying and discussing it. This is totally fine because our board had the same feeling. It was going to require quite a bit of money to renovate something that didn't belong to us. Also, we have been growing so much lately that we may outgrow the place before we even get in. So we are back to praying and looking for a new place to meet. Please keep this matter in your prayers as well. We are totally trusting the Lord in this. The buyer of the building where we meet now will let us stay for a few more months but he definitely is going to need the place so we do have to be on the look out. Thank you for your faithful prayers!

Yesterday was a gorgeous day. The sun was shining and the skies were a brilliant blue. What a wonderful day to be out and about. Look at that sky! There was even a bald eagle flying above the house. Just beautiful. A wonderful day to go out and enjoy the weather. Then I happened to go look at the thermometer out the kitchen window. Brrrr! 34 degrees and very windy. We ended up staying inside and enjoying the view from the windows.

Dan & I were asked to speak at our homeschool support group last Tuesday night. The subject was preparing our children for life. This is a scary topic! The reason we were asked was the leader happens to teach the boys at their homeschool co-op finance class and she noted their maturity compared to some of the other children. She also commented on the fact that the children seem to have a vision for church planting and we are unified as a family in this area. I would love to take total credit for this but I'm afraid Dan & I can't take it all. I believe that much of my children's maturity comes from the fact that they deal with so many things that most kids never have to. Nathan is severely learning disabled, has short stature, and Tourette's Syndrome. Stephen has generalized anxiety disorder. Emily has severe food and environmental allergies. Those are some heavy duty things for children to deal with. The very fact that they have to deal with these issue...

In an effort to continue my previous post about presenting ourselves honestly, I thought I'd show you just how perfect I am NOT!!! Here are a few hot spots around my house today. Computer desk. Yes, there are dust bunnies under the monitor! Believe it or not, I actually decluttered quite a bit in this spot today. Upstairs landing. I keep a table up there where I can put a child to work independently. However, as you can see, there is not much room to work. Kitchen counter. Basket of clothes and slippers that have been sitting in the same spot for the past 2 days. Counter top. This is the worse spot for clutter in the whole house. This is my number one goal for the week. Clean up this mess! I have a shelf for piano books. I have a shelf for regular books. But somehow they always manage to be left right where you see them. Living room. Now, I can say that this is NOT my mess. Guess who is going to clean this one up? All I can say is that her name is ...

Yesterday was a down sort of day. Mondays tend to be like that after the busyness of Sunday but I didn't feel well at all either. So after school was over, I sent the kids outside and I went myself to try and get some fresh air. It didn't help me feel better but the kids enjoyed themselves. I realize that I've had a lot of outdoor pictures lately. To be honest, we are developing cabin fever so we are living outdoors as much as possible. Buds on the magnolia tree. A sure sign of spring. Emily & I walked up through the woods. I have lived here for 4 years and had no idea at the top of the woods I would come upon this! I've never gone all the way to the top. Beautiful views. The creek has receded. Aren't they silly? Later on Emily played chess with Dan. Overall, it was a quiet day. I still have a major headache this morning so I'm hoping today goes better.