I know the ending...

I know, long time, no blog. Life gets busy sometimes...

At any rate, tonight I went to church for our Wed. night youth service. During July we just do the middle school & high school together with no small groups. Truth be told, I wasn't even planning on going tonight, I enjoy having the month of July off. I was sitting at dinner and just really felt God leading me to go and I am glad that I did.

The gentleman that shared the final segment in the "Heroes" series, this one focusing specifically on Jesus. He shared that there are 4 parts to a good story:

1. Grand beginning
2. Greatest purpose
3. Conflict
4. Satisfying resolution

If you are a Christ-follower, you already have your "Grand Beginning" and your "Satisfying Resolution" is living with Christ in heaven forever, that leaves our "Greatest Purpose" & "Conflict." I have to be honest, I'm not a big fan of the "conflict" part - I would love to get through life without facing it but as the speaker noted, conflict is necessary as it gives the hero something that they must overcome.

Have you ever gone ahead and read the ending of a book before you are done with it? Did it make the book easier or harder to read? I guess that depends on the ending. With books that I know are going to be tough emotionally, I like to read the end of the book first. Knowing how it ends somehow makes reading the tough stuff in the middle easier. An example of this for me is the book "My Sister's Keeper." I HATE reading anything about cancer and people dying so I wasn't too keen on picking this book up at all but friends kept telling me to read it. I read the ending first so I could prepare myself for what was to come.

I'll say it again - I read the ending FIRST so I could prepare myself for what was to come. Knowing how it ends somehow makes the getting there easier.

Wait, as Christ-followers we KNOW what the ending to our story is - eternity in heaven with Jesus. Should that change how I view life? In light of what I know the end will be, how will I live differently? Should I worry as much? Should I live with such anxiety and fear?

I liked how the speaker ended the night: "Let God write your story, He is a much better writer than we are."

I already know the beginning & end of the story - let's see what the middle holds.

I like to sleep...

...just not at the "normal" times. I am a night-owl. I hate going to bed early and I define early as anytime before 1 am. That said, I am NOT a morning person. I hate to get out of bed early so it's a real stretch for me to get the kids up & to school/church at an early hour.

My ideal hours for sleeping? 3 am - 10 am.

I wish I could get the rest of the world on board. LOL!

Snowgirl

We got some more snow today and the kids did the one thing they had yet to do the other 2 times we've had snow this season - make a snowman (or snowgirl as Morgan insists on calling it because of the hat & scarf).

Here are a few pics. Don't know what Owen was doing in that one picture. We used buckets because the snow wouldn't really pack into a ball easily so it's a rectangle snow"girl"

Why the return to blogging??

I decided to start my New Year's resolutions in February...

Resolution #1 - stop procrastinating (LOL)

Valentine Cards Take 3

Well, I'm sure you can figure out who comes next - right? Drew sat down to work on his Valentine's Day cards tonight. He wanted to do what Morgan did with the Heart Shaped Sweet Treat Cups from Stampin' Up. They are little containers that stick to your paper that you can put things in. We put little conversation hearts in them. I felt kind of funny having my SON make heart shaped flowers but that's what the kid wanted to do. He did a great job & had fun doing it.

Valentine Cards - Take 2

This morning Owen & I sat down to make his Valentine's cards. It was so much fun and he did such a good job. Here are some pictures...

Valentine Cards

Morgan has been looking forward to getting together with her friend, Elizabeth, to make Valentine cards for some time now. The stuff finally came in so today was the day.

Here are a few pics. I'll post the final product when we put the ribbon on them.

The Power of an Apology

Never underestimate the power of the two little words, "I'm sorry." They can cause big change and go a long way to mending hearts. The lack of those words can sometimes cause huge rifts and broken hearts.

Apologizing hasn't always come easy for me. When I was younger I absolutely HATED to swallow my pride and apologize. It was like pulling teeth and I didn't do it nearly enough. I was right. Period. Even if I was wrong, I was "right".

Life doesn't work like this.

One things I've been very purposeful about over the past 10-15 years is to apologize when I've made a mistake or hurt someones feelings. It isn't always easy but it is necessary. I have apologized numerous times to my children when I have responded to them in a way I shouldn't or done something wrong, I think it teaches them a good lesson about life. I've apologized to my friends when I've stepped across the line and I've even apologized for things that I really didn't need to just to keep the peace.

I find it very sad when we let our selfish need to be "right" (even when we may be wrong) and our need to keep our pride in tact keep us from saying the two words that would do more to fix a situation than anything.

Many friendships are lost because of an inability to look beyond ourselves and truly care about another person enough to apologize.

The thing I hope you take away from this... don't let pride keep you from humbling yourself and apologizing when you've made a mistake. And, on the flip side, if someone apologizes to you, don't let your pride keep you from accepting the apology.

A girl can never have too many shoes...

Morgan decided to clean up her closet the other day and she organized her shoes. You can see a picture below of some of her shoes. Yes, I said "some". The girl has 38 pairs of shoes! Oh my!!

Now, before you think that Mom & Dad have gone overboard, most of those shoes have been gotten at SUPER DISCOUNT and probably 10-12 pairs are in a size bigger than she currently wears. Last week I got her 5 pairs of shoes for $1 each! The week before that Eric bought her 4-5 pair for CHEAP on sears.com. We know she loves shoes, and so we've been pretty good at getting a fantastic deal but I had no idea she had this many.

Guess she's good for a while, what do you think?

Catching up - Fall 09

Okay, so I got a bit behind on my posting. I tend to stay over at Facebook and forget about this blog (not that many read it, it's not all that interesting).

In an attempt to catch-up, here are a few pics from a friend's house. Fall is my absolute favorite time of the year and I really had wanted to get pics of all three kiddos in the beautiful leaves. I was only able to get Owen. Here are a few pics with my friend Jennifer & her son, Collin.