Frequent use will keep it sparkly....

Okay so what on earth is that supposed to mean?? That's what your wondering right..

Funny thing, I have 6 kids and a busy life so I have always tended to keep my wedding ring put up. Usually in a pocket in my purse, that way I can put it on when I leave the house. I recently decided, I needed to be wearing it all the time. I no longer have infants I am worried about scratching so I should be wearing it. So I have been wearing it. When I first took it out of my purse, I realized it was looking quite dingy. I thought rats need to get some cleaner.

Now it looks quite sparkly. Just by the constant wear and all the times I wash my hands during the day have revived it. Now here is the interesting thing, just bear with me. This struck me the other day as I sat here posting the Valentines post. How like so many other things this is. First and foremost it is like our relationship with God.

How many of you are as guilty as I am of sometimes putting God away on a shelf. Yes we pray, yes we go to church, and we read the Bible, sure.... But seriously are we actually having a relationship with God. No, it is just sitting there getting all dingy like my ring in my purse. As I have been recently reminded, we need to get the Bible down off the shelve or desk, really delve into it, We need to hit our knees literally and actually talk to God our father, He is waiting on us, he never gives up on us, just us on him sometimes. And go to church and really hear what is being said.

We recently switched churches. We have realized we were slowly starving to death at the other one. No I did not expect my old church to be my only connection to God, however, when all you are hearing are the same sermons year after year and you are learning nothing. Sometimes it is time to move on. The new church we are attending is such a blessing. We have never failed to leave there without hearing something relevant to ourselves personally. In fact yesterday, the Pastor could have been speaking only to me and it would have made sense. How refreshing that is.

I feel as if my relationship with God is sparkling again.

Another thing that the sparkly thing reminded me of is our personal relationships, family, friends, etc. Most importantly after God is the relationship with our husbands/wives. Have you kept yours sparkly?? Mine has not been as it should. I, with Gods help am working at correcting things. Not that I was doing a whole bunch of things wrong, but not all the things I should have been doing right. You know little extras that can say I love you, I am thinking about you, I am praying for

Notes or calls to tell them your thinking about them. Making their favorite desserts. Picking up their favorite snack. Putting the gas in for them when they have to go somewhere, yes ladies we can do this as well. Getting up early and making them breakfast even if you don't need to be up for hours. And don't forget to pray for your husbands/wives. There are so many others out there who are waiting like a vulture for your marriage to look near death. Just so that they can swoop in and save our precious spouse from suffering. We have all seen it happen. So don't let your marriage get all dingy.

Hope everyone has a delightfully sparkly day!!!
Hugs
Amy

Happy Valentines Day!!!!

I hope that everyone has a wonderful Valentines Day!!! I have been busy making handmade cards for my husband and children. I planned on more for the more extended family members, sigh.... I did not get them done. I don't know why I waited so long, LOL. As Valentines Day was coming, I have been trying to do extra nice things for my sweetie, I made him cheesecake, picked up his favorite snacks, got him some chocolate, you know just somethings. We are planning on dinner and movies tonight.

I was trying to think of something to write and then I remembered that I had already written something 2 years ago for a Valentines Day Tea. I thought I would share it here.


LOVE

Today is Valentines Day and what do we think of when we think of Valentines Day? Candy maybe, flowers, cards perhaps, jewelry, and of course Love. There are many different kinds of love. For instance there is the love we have for our first huggy toy or blankie, that our parents probably wish they could toss out. Something we never even wanted washed. For us at that point it was a true and everlasting love.

We of course have the love for our pets. A kitty or puppy for some perhaps a lizard or even birds for others. Although personally I do like my pets fuzzy. And of course our love was returned unashamedly and unreservedly by our pets. Isn't that a wonderful love.

Then we often stumbled into puppy love. Awwwww. The love we often have for a childhood friend. Perhaps the person was your best friend or maybe even someone you never ever talked to. Maybe this other person loved you right back. Puppy love can hang on for a long time. Some of these "puppy" loves can last a lifetime. Through all the school years until the can marry and hopefully live happily ever after.

Of course then we grow up, or so we think and we fall in love in high school. This can be so dramatic. I met the young man I dated through high school at church. We hung around for awhile giving each other all of those mushy looks kids can give each other. Kinda hinted around through others that we liked each other. And finally at a Family Church Camp, we were sitting by each other and the preacher said he wanted everyone to hold each others hand for prayer.

Well he took my hand and long story short we dated through high school and then married and had 6 kids. I am so thankful for my husband and love him alot. So now we have the until death do us part love which is strong, compelling, even overwhelming at times. The belonging to and with another person, that's a big thing, and exciting thing a frustrating thing, and then an eventually, sad thing either due to a divorce or the until death do us part stuff comes along.

Okay going on then you have the love for your babies, sigh.... I will never forget the first time I saw my babies sweet little round faces. The sudden and complete falling in love with a little scrap of a person! I never wanted to put them down. I cuddled them all next to me all night until they slept through the night on their own. This is another love that is exciting and often frustrating. As babies become independent toddlers and then go off to school and then become teenagers that all of a sudden know everything and we as parents suddenly become some of the dumbest people on the planet!

We also have the love for our family that is important and changes as we grow. Our parents are everything when we are babies. We do become less dependent on them as we grow, but love them none the less. Now the love for our siblings that is another tough love. Sometimes it does not feel much like love but more like well let's just say extreme dislike. Perhaps your sister kept taking your clothes, or maybe you were kind of mean and teased your sister alot about everything. This doesn't mean we don't love them, just that were kids. We love our aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents all of who supply us with love. Large games of hid and seek with all the cousins, grandmas hot homemade rolls, the time just spent together because you love each other. What a blessing love for and from our family is.

As we have grown up we find friends along the way. Special friends who can help cheer you up when you need it and who need you to do the same when they have a down day. To have a friend to love you and one to love back is a special thing indeed. To have someone who will put up with you when you can't even put up with yourself, that is an awesome love. I believe God put those special friends there because he knew we needed each other.

As wonderful as all these loves are there is a love that has no comparison. God's love. God's love will never die. He never decides, well Amy did not come to church today so I am not going to care about her anymore. God wants the best for us and loves us so much that he sent his own and only son to die for us. So that we would not have to pay the wages of sin ourselves. A firey burning pit in hell. That's how much he loves us. I know I could never do that. I love you all, but I could not sacrifice my son, my child for you. Sacrifice myself, maybe....

God's love is everlasting. Kids grow up and move away, not that they don't love you but they aren't there everyday to say it. Friends often leave, families get busy, husband or wives may divorce or eventually pass away, but God's love is here forever. No matter how mad at the world we get, or even if we have managed to make the whole rest of the world mad at us, God will love us. No matter what we do we can't make him hate us. He may hate what we do, but he will love us forever. His arms will always be there. We just have to let him carry us.

So even if you did not get a dozen roses, a thousand pounds of candy, diamond jewelry, or even if you are alone and think no one cares, you are indeed loved. You are blessed enough to have the best, most awesome, complete, never failing, will never leave you nor forsake you, beyond death, love that you can imagine. The most important love of all, God's Love!!!

Happy Valentines Day.

Hugs
Amy

We had snow

Today started out just the same as most week days. I got up made my husband breakfast. I sat with him while he ate and noticed the curtian in the living room moving. SIGH.... Someone left a window open all night with the heater on NICE.... So I go over to shut the window and this is what I saw. As I was saying goodbye to my husband I though hey I should grab the camera. He called me as he was driving to work and said hey you should video this. So I did. Quite pretty although I am glad that it seems to be melting. I am so ready for spring.

Hugs
Amy

Why does it take trials for me to grow, or the post also known as why oh why am I so dumb, LOL???

I have been not so gently encouraged lately to do some growing in my walk with God. It needed to happen I am the first to admit that. I did read the bible, I prayed, but to be honest it was all kinda half hearted lately. Dear God protect my family and friends keep them safe and healthy. AMEN...

Good things to pray to be sure, but hardly the deep and meaningful conversations that one should be having with their heavenly Father. Pretty sad Amy. This time it took a momentous shock a risk to my family as I know it to push me into growth. My knees hit the floor......... I have never prayed in this way before. I am so thankful for this even though the circumstances are not the best.

I am also catching up on my bible reading. The bible and a couple of devotionals are all I am reading currently. I used to read a book a day. Not anymore they went back to the library. It is amazing now with a different perspective how much more the verses mean to me. I was reading Job 4 the other day, and it served as such a good reminder that God can and does do all these things. These amazing, wonderful, fantastic, miraculous things, how dare I doubt that he can take care of me and this situation no matter what the outcome is God will take care of me.

I also have been trying to keep good Godly music such as my Gregory Paul Smith, Staynlis, Kim Hill, and a number of other Cd's playing. They are helpful in keeping my mood calm and peaceful. When I would just as soon as scream and cry. I just keep reminding myself the joy of the Lord is my strength. And so it is. I realized that a number of years ago. That thanks to the Lord I have the ability to find joy each and every day even when there looks to be little to be joyful about.

I know that God will take care of me and my family no matter what happens. That I am thankful for. I know he will carry me through. So tonight as I sit here weary and struggling, tonight is I guess one of those times when God is doing the carrying me through stuff. Tonight is a tired weary night. I am praying for peace and strength. I pray for continued joy I pray for love to those who say things about me who obviously never bothered to actually get to know me. I pray for a kinds spirit and understanding when dealing with anger that is turned my way.

Thankful for the Lord watching over me

Amy

I have my computer

Yeah Praise God. LOL. Yes I did miss my computer can you tell. We have been so busy, and I have stuff I gotta run do here in a bit however. I hope to update things alot later today.

Hugs everyone
Amy

Hello

Tomorrow, I should finally officially be back online. I will have an entirely new computer designed for me to have plenty of space for pictures, much fast everything and a new flat screen. A friend of a friend, builds them, and he made this one for me and for only 473.00. I will be up and running and should have a very hard time running out of space. LOL. Yeah!!!!!!

If there is anyone left who still stops by please pray for me and my family as we are going through some very tough times personally. I will share more perhaps when I can, but for now this is all I can say.

I miss visiting all of you other bloggers, and hope to stop by soon.

Hugs
Amy

Hello

I must say I am so missing being able to read all the lovely blogs, that I used to stop by. At our library I can not access so many of them. SIGH...... We have been keeping busy with school work, still have kiddos, who DON'T want to read. Although most of mine really enjoy reading. I just have a stubborn 5 and 6 year old. I now have a teenage daughter, GASP..... My little and only girl is now 13. It seems like not so long ago she was an itty bitty baby. Time flies.

For part of her birthday we went to Miss Emily's Tea room at Riverside Cup of Tea. We always enjoy going there. They served a wonderful strawberry citrus herbal tea, called Angel Falls Mist. It was lovely. A beautiful pink color, and it was truly delightful hot as well as cold. The first course was a hot fruit soup. It kind of tasted like spiced cider. Yummy, then we had cucumber and chicken salad sandwiches, quiche, and spinach balls. Scones, shortbread, and 4 little desserts. The atmosphere is always nice and the services was terrific.

My husband and I took her out to dinner and to a movie the night before. The movie she picked was Hotel for Dogs. It was quite cute and I will rent it again for the rest of the kiddos when it comes out on video. Over her birthday weekend, she also had chicken enchiladas and Oreo cookie cake, which has not a speck of cake in it. It really is yummy.

Well gotta run for now.
Hope everyone has a delightful weekend.
Hugs
Amy

I am so irritated

Okay, I am actually okay, but I so miss my computer. I told someone the other day I could almost be Amish, we have no TV, no computer, and we had no running vehicle, LOL. So except electricity and phones, we were almost there. They said okay so then I guess you can make my some butter then, well they did not know that yup I could indeed so I said well yeah. They were kinda silent, LOL. It amazed them I guess that I can make butter, LOL. We are still hoping to have a computer soon. I guess other things just are more important such as saving to get the transmission fixed, sigh....

Someday I will blog with pictures again. I will I will, LOL. Hope everyone has a delightful week.
Hugs
Amy

Life lately

Well we still do not have a computer at home in case you were wondering we I have been so slow about changing the background and music. I am going to try to take care of that today. Since I am using a library computer it does not access some things, however I did discover a back way into blogger so I can change the background at least, LOL. I will have to see if I can get into project play list to put the old list back. We are still walking lots to get things we need which, hey is not really a bad thing. Unless it gets cold again. It is a lovely 51 degrees today, so not bad. I did not even wear my coat.

Been busy un-decorating from Christmas. I always hate doing it. SIGH..... The house always looks so bare afterward. I did leave up the garland and lights this year. I just took down the red berries and bows. And changed out the Christmas table runners. Well gotta keep running and with a time limit on the computers I need to see about the background. If your reading this and it no longer looks Christmas colored then you will know I have been successful. I may not have a header pictures until I get my new computer.

Hope everyone has a lovely new year
Hugs
Amy

Sigh

Hello all

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas. Ours was lovely. I also was blessed to see my brother David a few times while he was home. He is a Marine and thankfully he and my brother Christopher are both back from overseas. I hope Chris has time to come home soon so that I can hug him a bunch like I did my brother David.

Now on to the SIGH...... portion of this post. The mechanic who looked at our suburban made a unfortunate mistake. The transmission was indeed having some trouble and now is no more. While before we might have been able to repair and overhaul, now we are looking at a new transmission. SIGH........

Oh well, yes I am frustrated, but we have alot to be thankful for


1. my husbands new job is 5 blocks away and he has a ride, Praise God,

2. the failure happened 2 blocks from home on an okay weather day, Praise God

3. it did not happen Tuesday when we drove an hour away from home and got ice and it took us two and a half hours to get home, that would have really sucked, Praise God

4. We live in a fairly small town so the library and grocery store is not to far away, Praise God

I am not sure when we will be able to get it up and running again, but God has blessed us and always kept us.

Praise God

Have a blessed new year
Hugs
Amy

Blessings

We are all excited at our house. Christmas is just a few days away. We have been reading lots of Christmas books and watching alot of Christmas movies. We had snow last week, but it melted. I am hoping for a white Christmas. I really actually do not like snow all that much too wet and too cold. It sure is pretty though and makes it really fun for Christmas. It has been sooooooo cold here lately. It just feels colder this year to me for some reason. Not sure why, LOL.

Okay now on to the blessing part of the day, : )

A few weeks ago we noticed an odd noise with our car. Without boring everyone with all the technical info, they thought it was the transmission. RATS!!!!! This is always such a pricey thing to fix. Well Friday, my husband and a friend from his new job, drove it down to have it looked at in Newton Ks. I am thinking it was his friend brother who is a mechanic down there who looked at it, anyway.....

He looked it all over and ran some test and they decided that there was nothing wrong with the transmission, yeah. We need new brake pads, no biggie, we need to fix the pipe connecting the catalytic converter to the muffler, which is what was causing the symptoms we were having with our car, and then they noticed the really important thing, a freeze plug was leaking and needed to be replaced. Highly important not as pricey as the transmission.

So it is in the shop as we speak getting that replaced, so we should have a car we can drive for some last minute shopping I need to do, and for the best part visiting family and friends. Yeah!!!! I am so thankful!

Well better run, I got alot to do today.

Hugs
Merry Christmas
Amy

Christmas is coming....

However no goose is getting fat for our house, LOL. We do not eat much in the way of any feather friends besides turkey and chicken. I am working hard on the Christmas presents and hope to get them finished soon. I love Christmas. My hubby's new job is going well. He likes the people and schedule so that's good. Big downer this week the car is acting up, geesh...... I just don't understand why we can't have everything working at once, LOL. Oh well God never promised me a smooth road, so hey we just keep on going. I hope everyone has a wonderful week.

Hugs
Merry Christmas
Amy

Christmas and puppies

We are still getting ready for Christmas here. Mixing up more cookie dough and working on crafty type gifts, LOL. I have re listed the puppies in the newspaper and online. I have reduced prices due to the way the world and economy is now and would just like to find the puppies good homes. Schnauzers make such lovely family pets. They are usually easy to train and have loads of fun playing with you. Anyway, I hope everyone has a lovely week.

 

Merry Christmas

Hugs

Amy

Getting ready for Christmas

I am still without a computer. I am glad I as able to set up more things to be done by email. We have been busy finishing up the decorating at our house. I wish I could share pictures, alas, I can not. If I get computer up and running soon I will. We have started mixing up cookie dough and freezing it so that it is ready to bake right before Christmas. I also have shredded zucchini and mashed bananas in the freezer as well frozen in the correct sized amounts per recipe. They freeze great and then can just be let to set out for 30 min or so and then added to the recipe and baked fresh. Saves time when you are trying to bake large amounts in a short period of time.
 
My family is having our annual Christmas get together and we will be doing a gift exchange as usual. this year we decided on homemade things and gift baskets one for each family from each family. As my family reads my blog, I can not share what I am doing for Christmas, LOL. My brother David should be home for Christmas. Christopher and Niki will not be able to make it for Christmas although we are hoping that they will be here sometime in January.
 
I hope everyone has a lovely week.
Merry Christmas
Hugs
Amy

Computer troubles, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Okay I am not sure when I will have a working computer at home again. Mine finally gave up and the thought is that it is the board. GRRRRRRRR Bad time of year. I had alot I wanted to post. A wonderful friend is letting me use her computer tonight to post, but the library computers will not let me access blogger. I can access myspace, which has lots of "fabulous" pictures and songs on it, but can't access my blogger account, geesh. Hey wait I might be able to set it up to post by email. I shall have to check that. So if you here from me again soon, like early next week. You'll know the email trick worked. I hope everyone is enjoying getting ready for Christmas. I know I am. We decorated the high ledges and around door ways, and we have a lovely 8 foot tall Frasier Fir tree. The are pretty inexpensive at Lowes. I hope to be able to share more soon.

Hugs and Merry Christmas
Amy