The Hardest Thing

I've learned that the hardest thing to do is to accept help. Most of us are so willing to give help but recently it was brought home to me that we don't like to allow others to help us. My grandmother has been living with my mom and is facing her last days on earth. She is a godly woman and after a long battle with cancer is ready to go home to God. As her illness has progressed my mother has needed to do more for her. This week Grandma has hardly been out of bed and my mom doesn't want to leave her alone in the house if she can help it. I have gone down several times so my mom can keep the rest of her life going and run errands etc. Several of our church family have offered to help sit with Grandma or do things for Mom and I know Mom appreciates that. She has had a really hard time accepting help. I told her that she has done so much for people over the years that they are just waiting for the opportunity to return the favor. My mom often takes meals, or helps with projects etc for people in the church. For her love is service. I know part of her reluctance is she doesn't want Grandma to worry about or be upset with the need for someone to be there and the reminder that a sitter would be. The whole situation has made me sure that we as Christians not only need to help our brothers but we need to allow our brothers to help us when we have a need. How often do we say "Thanks, I'm okay," when we could use a hand? In doing so do we deprive our brother of a ministry opportunity. I have wanted to do more for my mom this week and I have been treading lightly so as not to push. She doesn't want to impose but what is family for. I continue to volunteer and when she does ask I gladly agree to do. I am taking a lesson away from this, Help and be willing to be helped. It goes with our Romans 12 lesson. Give your brother an opportunity to use his or her gift in service to the body, even you.

Living Sacrifices

Romans 12:3-9 For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith; or ministry, let us use it in our ministering; he who teaches, in teaching; he who exhorts, in exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.what is good.

This was part of the Sabbath School lesson last week and even before that I have been giving a lot of thought to gifts and roles in the body. I have heard people say that life doesn't come with an instruction book and that babies don't come with owners manuals but I would bet the people who believe that don't read the Bible. I have yet to come across a problem that I couldn't find a solution in the Bible, even if the solution means calling my mother and asking her. Honor your mother...

My recent experience with directing Bible School with Betsy and meshing our individual talents to put on a (in my humble opinion) successful week makes me even more sure that my role as a Christian is to use what gifts God has given me to glorify Him. I also believe that means helping those around me use their gifts, to form a body that compliments each other with service not competes with each other. We shouldn't bemoan the gifts some one has that we don't but find ways to take advantage of their strengths, and use our strengths to add another dimension. I felt truly blessed in our team at Bible School. Each person chose areas of interest and areas that filled our needs. We could truly hand off the assignment and not worry about their implementation because it was done and done well. Praise God.

I Married a Science Teacher

The other night my husband sat in front of the computer for what seemed like hours taking some of those online quizzes that people can post in blogs from blogthings. Some of them were stupid, for instance the redneck I am married to only registered 35 percent redneck. The questions were pretty bad. To get redneck status you would have to have inbreeding and a car in your front yard. I know a lot of rednecks who have neither. I registered only 13 percent and while I am not really redneck, by virtue of being married to one I thought I would rate higher than that. As I took the below quiz I was hoping not to embarrass myself. I was never very interested in science but as a college graduate it would be humiliating to fail 8th grade science. My science teacher husband not withstanding.

You Passed 8th Grade Science

Congratulations, you got 7/8 correct!

Could You Pass 8th Grade Science?

So this Fits

After I did this I had Shan go through the questions. It was so right on it was scary. He actually thinks the cookies are making fun of him and that he has to eat them to teach them a lesson. I posted his Seasame Street identity, mine will have to wait.

table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" width="350" align="center" border="0">You Are Cookie MonsterMisunderstood as a primal monster, you're a true hedonist with a huge sweet tooth.
You are usually feeling: Hungry. Cookies are preferred, but you'll eat anything if cookies aren't around.
You are famous for: Your slightly crazy eyes and usual way of speaking
How you life your life: In the moment. "Me want COOKIE!"

The Sesame Street Personality Quiz

Fiesta Finale Finito

It's done, It's done, It's done. The kids are all gone, the crafts made the stories told, the tacos eaten and the decorations put away. The church is clean and back in orginal condition. The thank you notes are written and distributed, the extra workbooks are returned to the bookstore and my feet hurt. Give me a month and I can maybe start thinking about next year. It was such a successful week, we had 7 more kids than last year and we averaged 3 more per night. I am sure we blew the budget but no one seems to care that we did and the kids had a great time. Several parents came up to thank me for the week and I am basking in the glow of personal satisfaction. God is great and He blessed our week. So many things fell together and I have to believe that He directed it. Thank You Father.

The Flip Flop Favorites

My girls wanted flip flops ever since last year when they noticed their friends had them. So this year I looked at my local cheap store, NBC, and found Je a pair of flip flops. I didn't think Jo could handle them yet since she is only two. It took me about 10 minutes of them fighting over the flip flops to change my mind and schedule a return trip to the store to find Jo some. Jo has a real serious shoe thing. If you take off your shoes, beware. Jo will remove her shoes so she can try yours. I can't tell you how many times I have had to spend big chunks of time searching for my niece's shoes when she visits because Jo borrowed them and left them somewhere randomly in our house.


So we got the flip flops and the girls love them. They wear them everyday. They wear them to bed. I put my foot down though and they have to wear real shoes to church. Je quickly learned how to wear shoes without ties or straps. She does great. Jo on the other hand took a little longer. For starters, she has the littlest feet. I have yet to see a flip flop in a size 5 or 6 so she has some labeled extra small. I think they are from Children's place. Flip flops small enough to fit Jo are not really flip flops because they seem to all have elastic around the heel. The girls don't want that. So Jo's are a little big, but she has finally figured out how to keep them on and which toe they go between. Now if she can just get them on the right feet we'll be set. She cracks me up. I usually make Jo wear regular sandals when we go places because the flip flops are still big, so as soon as we get home she takes off her regular shoes and puts on her flip flops. They both put them on first thing in the morning. It's hysterical. I have passed the shoe thing on to my kids. I think Shan is ready to collapse from the thought of two teenagers and their mother with closets full of shoes. At least he has a few years before that happens. Maybe.

Sleep--Who Needs it.

Okay, I have given up on trying to sleep tonight, at least for a while. It is 2:40 am as I start this post. The last several nights I have had trouble going to sleep because I can't seem to turn my mind off. With Bible School looming I keep thinking of things to do or worry about. Sometime Saturday morning before reaching full consciousness, I had a brainstorm about the decorating. I got up before 7 and typed up room by room lists of the things we needed to do in each room. I used Hot Tamale font for the lists, and then posted them on the doors of each area so that when my helpers arrived I could point them at a list. Several people commented that my lists were helpful. I was really impressed with my snack coordinator. She and her daughter took the list for their area and went to town. I had a few decorations that were up for grabs and they took some and left a lovely environment for our snack time. We are doing it a bit different this year--we are making the suggested snacks that match the lessons and we are having the kids do it. It will be great. I keep telling myself that anyway. We did tape down three large drop cloths on the floor of the family life center, or as I call it, the gym. The whole church looked very festive today and fiesta like. Tomorrow, or rather today, I have people coming to finish the sanctuary. I am using a whopping third of my babysitting tickets today to give myself a kid free chance to finish all those little details. I have this nagging feeling that I am forgetting something huge.

So after Saturday's decorating marathon I was beat. My legs ached which is a sure sign that I am exhausted. I could be off my feet most of the day but really busy and get tired and my legs would still ache. I took a couple tylenol pm's to help me get to sleep Sat. Night and was sleeping great when my mother called at 7:26 to borrow sugar for banana bread she was making for my grandma's breakfast. Speaking of grandma, she is not so great, she doesn't leave the house much and has used the oxygen the home health people brought almost all day this last week. The cancer is affecting her lungs even more now. Pray for my mom as she takes care of her.

So now it is almost three am Monday morning and I am not sleepy, tired yes. I couldn't even get to sleep this afternoon when I tried to take a nap. I can't even blame it on the snoring husband because he wasn't.

Eventually, I will crash, probably sometime around five thirty p.m. when I am supposed to be getting our crew leaders ready to greet the kids.

Oh well sleep is overrated.

A Pit Stop in the Summer

So I've neglected to blog. Let me describe to you an average day in the last month. We get up before seven and try to clean a little house, do a little laundry make a few phone calls all while the monkeys, as their father calls them, interrupt. "Mama is sesame Street on now?" Yes please go watch. The phone rings, Can you watch my kids today? Sure drop 'em off. Mama are we going somewhere today? I think we'll stay home. But Mama!!!!! Kids come, They See, They Destroy, They move on. I go back to cleaning and phoning, and laundry. You should see the ironing stash. Now a usual day in our house is pretty busy. I run after the kids, and the errands, and house chores all day usually stopping for a break around two to eat lunch, before hitting the ground running again. With Bible School and all the other activities this YEAR has been busy and I don't see an end in sight. For example:

We spent Memorial day with Shannon's family at a reunion. Now Kansas in May is supposed to warm up but it is extremely rare to have temperatures in the 100 degree range. Not this year. On the bright side the Yucca plants were beautiful.

Bible School is coming up and after one of our meetings when I kept sharing ideas I'd garnished along life my co-director said, "You're all Bible School all the time." I see ideas everywhere. Since it is a Fiesta themed event, we have great shots of the Western Kansas Desert...
Stuckey's on I-70 past Oakley sells Mexican blankets cheap, I am on the lookout for big boxes to use as adobe buildings, and on and on...Today I was driving out of Wally World parking lot and towards the mall for Bath and Body sale and had to turn around because there were some great clean huge boxes to use in the trash dumpster. I could only get two in the car and my kids weren't even happy with that.

For my middle sister's birthday today my youngest sister flew in to surprise us all. She was supposed to be there on Sat for our birthday breakfast but she got delayed on the plane and didn't make it till Sat. Afternoon. It has been great catching up with here and her husband. He hadn't been back to visit since Christmas. Which sounds like a recent event except in our family where we get together often.

Four weekends in a row we had big family get togethers with aunts and uncles etc. My local brother in law thought that was an item of note but my sister and I told him that that is pretty normal for our family we just got out of the habit the last several years. My husband remembers those days pretty well since we did it a lot through our courtship. My sister has only been married five years and in those years we've had a combined total of five kids so we had a lot going on.

My older child has had a ear infection and now she has a bad cough all in a months time so we are a little stressed and I had to lead Sabbath School last week and and and

So to summarize, I've been a little busy and I didn't get to the blog. It will only get busier this summer. That was just my schedule...Shan has his own list and so do the kids. AAAAAAAA Calgon take me away.