Proverbs 31:15-16: She gets up while it is still dark; she provides food for her family and portions for her servant girls. She considers a field and buys it; out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.
Well here recently after having baby #4 I've noticed a huge change in my life especially. I have NO TIME TO BREATHE!! I'm on the go all day long! If one thing in my day gets off the entire day is a mess! I have NO TIME for phone calls, Internet, or reading anymore. And if I do decide to get on the phone, update some blogs or crack open a book...4 crying babies all the sudden emerge from nowhere needing immediate responses to the deadly misquote bites, hair pulling sister, or hunger pains. Life in our household is very active and loud at the moment!
Last week I actually was having a strange sleeping schedule. For some reason I couldn't sleep past 4:45am. So every morning last week I was up before the sun! It really became quite enjoyable! There are so many things I can get done in those 2 hours of peace and quiet! I got up and checked email, had some coffee, did my bible study, had some exercise, showered, and made breakfast all before the little ones became conscious! I actually had some ME time! It was amazing!! Only problem was by the time 6:00pm rolled around, I was so exhausted I couldn't even hardly eat my dinner so I had to start drinking Coffee after dinner! Even then it only got me to 10:00pm!
This week I somehow went back to normal, I get to bed before 11 and haven't woken up will 8-9:00am. And this week is a nightmare! I get up do school with the girls, then it's lunch time, then I feed the baby, then naps, then cleaning, then feed the baby, then ON AND ON all day and into the night... I haven't gotten hardly a second of that peace and quiet that I've become so fond of in the early mornings!
So your challenge for this week Ladies is to look at your sleep schedule and when you get up in the mornings and get up 30-60 minutes earlier this week then you normally do, or than your kids normally do. In order to be good successful wives and mothers, we have to have that time to hear from the Lord in the mornings, or take our shower, or have quiet coffee! We have to have time to just be ourselves and take care of us so we can be better caretakers of our families. If you had an extra 30-60 minutes a day with no kids...what could you do??
Prayers this week ladies as you fast your sleep for the good of your souls. Make sure you head over to the facebook page and participate in the discussion this week! We're slacking a bit over there! Also don't forget to invite your friends to join us you never know whose marriage you will save!
Hugs!!
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Challenge #11 Sept 21-Sept 28, 2010
Proverbs 31:14 "She is like the merchant ships, bringing her food from afar."
The last few weeks we've taken more of a spiritual take on this verse. This week I'm going to take more of a physical take.
When I think of this verse literally, I picture a woman, a mother, a wife. She wakes up while it's still dark out, showers, dresses and puts on her shoes for her long journey. She isn't tired, but excited. She isn't dreading her day, but energized for it! She heads out on her long journey across the fields, across the deserts, across the mountains until she comes to town. She examines every fruit, every veggie, and every piece of meat while carefully choosing only the best, freshest and leanest! If she cannot find what she is looking for, she continues on her journey until she does. She is wise about her findings, picky about what she takes back to her family, and practical about what is needed. Sometimes her hunt for the best can take an entire day, and sometimes it only takes hours.
I remember back in the day before I had 4 children. I could get up for work, work till 5, then head to the grocery store, post office, bank and 5 other places within an hour! Now, it is an ALL DAY affair!
I've had to get a little more picky about some foods since I've had children, less picky about others, and wise about the amount of money we are willing to spend in order to feed our family. I spend more time clipping coupons, and looking at sale papers and plotting out our journey to get our necessities than I do fixing my hair and putting on make up anymore!
I for one know how painful those long grocery store trips can be with little one's. I can honestly say that some of those trips have given me the privilege of knowing the pain Christ felt on his journey to Golgotha where he was crucified! Oh how many times I've been in a store with unruly children and I just want to crawl in a hole from all the piercing looks and screams, and sounds of broken spaghetti sauce on the ground. I just have to remind myself that Christ's journey was longer and his pain and suffering was far beyond what mine is when I go grocery shopping! At least I know he is there beside me the hole time and won't give me anymore than I can handle!
The last three-four weeks we've eaten take out for dinner almost EVERY day! Now we never went anywhere that we didn't have a coupon for, or where they weren't offering free kids meals and it was still at least 15-$20.00 per meal. I had a baby, 5 weeks ago and for the last three-four weeks I was still recovering and did not have the energy to make dinner! It became so much easier for me to just go grab something! Now here it is 5 weeks later and I feel greasy, and tired and just gross from all the fast food! My girls (while they love a good chicken nugget meal) are sensitive to certain foods making them hyper, unable to sleep, and just irritable depending on what they eat. So for the last three-four weeks, yes meals have been easier on ME, but they have been harder on everything and everyone else! We've spent over 250.00 a week on eating out, that is 600.00 more a month that we normally spend! My children have been in a lot of trouble for not obeying, and not going to bed. They've been up some nights till 11:00pm, 12:00pm and sometimes 1:00am.
Life for us is so much better when we take that 1 day a week journey to the grocery store and run all our errands and be done with it! Sure we start at 10:00 in the morning loading up all 4 kids, and we don't get home until after 8:00pm, but the rest of the week my girls are not in trouble, and go to bed when they are suppose to! Not to mention we have a lot more money to use for other things!
I believe what God is trying to tell us here is that even though things are more convenient, doesn't make them better for us! We can't be selfish because we don't feel like standing in the kitchen for 30 minutes whipping up some mac & cheese and hot dogs for our family if it will save us a $20.00 per meal! (I'm so guilty of this!) If we need to take that extra hour or two a week and clip coupons, look them up online and print some off in order to save some extra money for our family and be good stewards of our money that God has trusted us with, so be it! What ever length you have to go to, to bring the best to your family, it will be totally worth it in the end! And even now days there are so many resources online to help with these little things. (I'll list my favorites at the end.)
So ladies, your challenge this week is to make an action plan. Do you need to order sunday papers to get coupons? Do you need to shop once a week, once every 2 weeks, or once a month even?(LOVE freezer cooking!!) Do you need to do a monthly meal plan and shopping list and stick to it? Whatever it is that you need to do in order to eat better, and save some money lets do it this week! Head over to the discussion forum on the facebook page and share some meal plans, recipes, or coupon tips!
~Hugs and prayers this week!
***Check out these websites***
http://www.thegrocerygame.com/con__WhatIsTheGroceryGame.cfm
http://www.couponmom.com/
http://e-mealz.com/
http://www.menus4moms.com
http://organizedhome.com/freezer-cooking/freezer-cookbook-recipes
http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2008-07-03T16%3A21%3A00-07%3A00&max-results=7
http://www.redplum.com
http://www.cincysavers.com/
The last few weeks we've taken more of a spiritual take on this verse. This week I'm going to take more of a physical take.
When I think of this verse literally, I picture a woman, a mother, a wife. She wakes up while it's still dark out, showers, dresses and puts on her shoes for her long journey. She isn't tired, but excited. She isn't dreading her day, but energized for it! She heads out on her long journey across the fields, across the deserts, across the mountains until she comes to town. She examines every fruit, every veggie, and every piece of meat while carefully choosing only the best, freshest and leanest! If she cannot find what she is looking for, she continues on her journey until she does. She is wise about her findings, picky about what she takes back to her family, and practical about what is needed. Sometimes her hunt for the best can take an entire day, and sometimes it only takes hours.
I remember back in the day before I had 4 children. I could get up for work, work till 5, then head to the grocery store, post office, bank and 5 other places within an hour! Now, it is an ALL DAY affair!
I've had to get a little more picky about some foods since I've had children, less picky about others, and wise about the amount of money we are willing to spend in order to feed our family. I spend more time clipping coupons, and looking at sale papers and plotting out our journey to get our necessities than I do fixing my hair and putting on make up anymore!
I for one know how painful those long grocery store trips can be with little one's. I can honestly say that some of those trips have given me the privilege of knowing the pain Christ felt on his journey to Golgotha where he was crucified! Oh how many times I've been in a store with unruly children and I just want to crawl in a hole from all the piercing looks and screams, and sounds of broken spaghetti sauce on the ground. I just have to remind myself that Christ's journey was longer and his pain and suffering was far beyond what mine is when I go grocery shopping! At least I know he is there beside me the hole time and won't give me anymore than I can handle!
The last three-four weeks we've eaten take out for dinner almost EVERY day! Now we never went anywhere that we didn't have a coupon for, or where they weren't offering free kids meals and it was still at least 15-$20.00 per meal. I had a baby, 5 weeks ago and for the last three-four weeks I was still recovering and did not have the energy to make dinner! It became so much easier for me to just go grab something! Now here it is 5 weeks later and I feel greasy, and tired and just gross from all the fast food! My girls (while they love a good chicken nugget meal) are sensitive to certain foods making them hyper, unable to sleep, and just irritable depending on what they eat. So for the last three-four weeks, yes meals have been easier on ME, but they have been harder on everything and everyone else! We've spent over 250.00 a week on eating out, that is 600.00 more a month that we normally spend! My children have been in a lot of trouble for not obeying, and not going to bed. They've been up some nights till 11:00pm, 12:00pm and sometimes 1:00am.
Life for us is so much better when we take that 1 day a week journey to the grocery store and run all our errands and be done with it! Sure we start at 10:00 in the morning loading up all 4 kids, and we don't get home until after 8:00pm, but the rest of the week my girls are not in trouble, and go to bed when they are suppose to! Not to mention we have a lot more money to use for other things!
I believe what God is trying to tell us here is that even though things are more convenient, doesn't make them better for us! We can't be selfish because we don't feel like standing in the kitchen for 30 minutes whipping up some mac & cheese and hot dogs for our family if it will save us a $20.00 per meal! (I'm so guilty of this!) If we need to take that extra hour or two a week and clip coupons, look them up online and print some off in order to save some extra money for our family and be good stewards of our money that God has trusted us with, so be it! What ever length you have to go to, to bring the best to your family, it will be totally worth it in the end! And even now days there are so many resources online to help with these little things. (I'll list my favorites at the end.)
So ladies, your challenge this week is to make an action plan. Do you need to order sunday papers to get coupons? Do you need to shop once a week, once every 2 weeks, or once a month even?(LOVE freezer cooking!!) Do you need to do a monthly meal plan and shopping list and stick to it? Whatever it is that you need to do in order to eat better, and save some money lets do it this week! Head over to the discussion forum on the facebook page and share some meal plans, recipes, or coupon tips!
~Hugs and prayers this week!
***Check out these websites***
http://www.thegrocerygame.com/con__WhatIsTheGroceryGame.cfm
http://www.couponmom.com/
http://e-mealz.com/
http://www.menus4moms.com
http://organizedhome.com/freezer-cooking/freezer-cookbook-recipes
http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2008-07-03T16%3A21%3A00-07%3A00&max-results=7
http://www.redplum.com
http://www.cincysavers.com/
Monday, September 13, 2010
Challenge #10 September 14-20, 2010
Proverbs 31:14 "She is like the merchant ship, bringing her food from afar.
It's so good to be back ladies! I'm so excited to start back with the challenges this month after a 4 week break! I hope everyone is rested up and ready to get back in this and give it their all again! My husband and I have been blessed with a beautiful 6lb 2oz baby girl, she is such a blessing to our lives and fits in with our family just perfectly! I couldn't be happier!
The last few days as I've been praying over this next challenge and what direction the Lord wants me to go with it. God brought to my mind a sermon my husband gave a long time ago called "Living Water-Ride it out." I always love listening to my husband preach/teach. He is so gifted and anointed and has so much wisdom and knowledge to share! So anyways I remembered we had a recording of it so I've spent most of my night trying to convert an MP3 file into a movie file, and load it onto facebook. It took some searching for free software and googleing to find out how the heck to do that but I think I finally have something! So I'm going to be quiet now and let you listen to him this week (I'll throw in my two cents after he is finished.)
I've broken his sermon into three parts. The first is about 5 minutes, then there is a media clip 2nd and then the rest of it is 3rd. Turn up your speakers and enjoy!!!
Oh goodness that clip gets to me everytime! Proverbs 31:14 "She is like the merchant ship, bringing her food from afar. As we talked about in our previous challenge, Merchant ships take a long time to get from point A to point B. They carry TONS of weight, but also have a weight limit cause too much weight will put the ship under. The Ship moves slow and when out to sea like that can come in contact with high waves, hurricanes, bad storms, pirates! But no matter what the ship goes through it will get to point B!
I'm not sure who this post is for because it's not EXACTLY what I wanted to write but it's what God gave me this week so I know it's for someone out there! Keep your eye on point B, give it over to God and "DON'T QUIT", cause God wants "EVERYTHING YOU GOT" and and when you "don't have anymore" he is going to be right there to pull you the rest of the way through!
I can't tell you how many times I've gotten on my knees and cried out "LORD it hurts and it burns, and is so heavy!! Lord I'm out of strength, it's too hard, I can't do it!!" And now I know why God never takes the blindfold off so I can see the whole picture, because if he did and I saw how much farther I had to go, I would quit! But when it's over and I turn around and see how far I've come, It's so worth it and I know that next time I might be able to even go a little further!
Matthew 11:28 says "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest"
So your challenge this week is to face those storms head on, and keep focused on getting from point A to point B while calling out to God! Not complaining, not crying and no QUITTING!! What is your storm this week? How have you been dealing with it so far and what can you do different? I want you this week to step out of your comfort zone and let me know how I can pray for you in your storm. You can message me, or post it in the discussion forum on the facebook page.
Prayers this week as we get back into our challenges!
Lots of Love!
It's so good to be back ladies! I'm so excited to start back with the challenges this month after a 4 week break! I hope everyone is rested up and ready to get back in this and give it their all again! My husband and I have been blessed with a beautiful 6lb 2oz baby girl, she is such a blessing to our lives and fits in with our family just perfectly! I couldn't be happier!
The last few days as I've been praying over this next challenge and what direction the Lord wants me to go with it. God brought to my mind a sermon my husband gave a long time ago called "Living Water-Ride it out." I always love listening to my husband preach/teach. He is so gifted and anointed and has so much wisdom and knowledge to share! So anyways I remembered we had a recording of it so I've spent most of my night trying to convert an MP3 file into a movie file, and load it onto facebook. It took some searching for free software and googleing to find out how the heck to do that but I think I finally have something! So I'm going to be quiet now and let you listen to him this week (I'll throw in my two cents after he is finished.)
I've broken his sermon into three parts. The first is about 5 minutes, then there is a media clip 2nd and then the rest of it is 3rd. Turn up your speakers and enjoy!!!
Oh goodness that clip gets to me everytime! Proverbs 31:14 "She is like the merchant ship, bringing her food from afar. As we talked about in our previous challenge, Merchant ships take a long time to get from point A to point B. They carry TONS of weight, but also have a weight limit cause too much weight will put the ship under. The Ship moves slow and when out to sea like that can come in contact with high waves, hurricanes, bad storms, pirates! But no matter what the ship goes through it will get to point B!
I'm not sure who this post is for because it's not EXACTLY what I wanted to write but it's what God gave me this week so I know it's for someone out there! Keep your eye on point B, give it over to God and "DON'T QUIT", cause God wants "EVERYTHING YOU GOT" and and when you "don't have anymore" he is going to be right there to pull you the rest of the way through!
I can't tell you how many times I've gotten on my knees and cried out "LORD it hurts and it burns, and is so heavy!! Lord I'm out of strength, it's too hard, I can't do it!!" And now I know why God never takes the blindfold off so I can see the whole picture, because if he did and I saw how much farther I had to go, I would quit! But when it's over and I turn around and see how far I've come, It's so worth it and I know that next time I might be able to even go a little further!
Matthew 11:28 says "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest"
So your challenge this week is to face those storms head on, and keep focused on getting from point A to point B while calling out to God! Not complaining, not crying and no QUITTING!! What is your storm this week? How have you been dealing with it so far and what can you do different? I want you this week to step out of your comfort zone and let me know how I can pray for you in your storm. You can message me, or post it in the discussion forum on the facebook page.
Prayers this week as we get back into our challenges!
Lots of Love!
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