Confessions of a Negligent Blogger

Okay, I must confess....I have been a negligent blogger.  I will try to do better.  So many things have been happening...I thought I would share a few of the things that have kept calling me away from my blogging world.

Well, there is the lovely campus to see.  Lots of things to explore there!  Oh, and we have just finished up our end of year testing...I was a little late on that one!

There are produce stands and farmer's markets!

Plenty of toads to keep a mother happy!

Beautiful butterflies outside my windows.

Skies only God could paint!

Our friends that come and feast at the edge of the property.

Some of the most beautiful moths I have ever seen!

The first Luna moth I have seen in person...landing on my wedding hat. 

And then there are the not so beautiful things...like huge slugs wrapping around my daughter's arm.  You would be proud of me...I didn't even jump.  I don't want to be "that" kind of Mom.

And did I mention...my five blessings...who make my days so blessed.   I really will try to do better...but if I am negligent again...you will know why!  Have a blessed day!

What the Last Few Weeks Have Been Like

I thought I would show you a glimpse of our last few weeks.  This first picture is from the hallway of the house we just moved out of.  Jonathan was getting boxes we stored in the attic so we could pack for our move.

We did a partial move ourselves through Uhaul.  As you can see, the truck was backed up to the front door for easy loading.  Here my husband is placing one of our red bookcases.

Many of the boxes that we packed ourselves were full of books.  Even though the boxes were small, they were a little heavy for one child to carry themselves.  But, our children still desired to help.  And they were a very big help at that too!  Here the girls are carrying a box together.  They would carry them out and then Jonathan would put them in place.

My boys in action.

Joy carrying one by herself.  She has a thing for going barefooted.

Finally hitting the road in the Uhaul.  The children took turns riding in the front with Daddy. 

After we unloaded the Uhaul at our new home, it was right back to Fayetteville to prepare for the movers to come and pack/load everything else.  When you move as much as we do with moving companies, you learn to have a "no pack" corner.  These are the things that you want to be able to put your hands on as soon as you get to the new place without sifting through hundreds of boxes!

Our den soon became an obstacle course.

This is the bonus room in the new house.  See why I have not been blogging much lately?  Most of the rooms looked like this. 

I hope to show you some pictures of this room when it is finished.  I still have quite a ways to go.  This is going to be school room/library/craft room...so there is a lot to put away and find places for everything.  I am so thankful it is a nice large room and there are so many windows.  I just love having the light shine through most of the day. 

Oh, I wanted to show you a creature that was attempting to be a stowaway.  So glad the children didn't catch him.  They would have been smuggling it to the new house.

And this is the view of the house we are living in for the next 14 months...until we get ready to do this all over again! 

And this my friends is what we all did when it was finally over! 

Introducing a New Blogger

My oldest daughter Joy has wanted a blog for some time now.  I told her when she was 15, she would be able to start blogging.  Well,even though it is still a few months away from her birthday, I allowed her to start creating her blog.  It didn't take her long to create in a few hours what I could hardly figure out in days!  So, I gave in and told her she could have her blog now.  If you get a chance, hop on over to Wheat in His Barn and say hello.  She is hoping her blog will encourage other young girls to love the Lord, honor their parents, love their siblings and take great pleasure in being wives and mothers in training.  I am very blessed to call her my daughter.

Peppermint Essential Oil

I have been experimenting lately in the wonderful world of essential oils.  Essential oils have been used since Biblical times and God has created some wonderful health benefits from the plants around us.  As someone who has experienced headaches most of my life, I have consumed way beyond my limit of Tylenol!  Finding out that too much Tylenol can cause liver damage has made me seek other alternatives for the common headache.  So, you can imagine how overjoyed I was to find that Peppermint Essential Oil provides headache relief.  The one caveat to this is that it MUST be therapeutic grade essential oil.  And believe me, not all those that carry that name actually are therapeutic grade.  When I get a headache now I reach for my peppermint bottle.  I take a drop and put it on my finger and place that on both my temples.  Then I take another drop, place in on my fingers and put it on both sides of the back of my neck, just under the hairline.  The way to know if it is therapeutic or not is if it starts feeling cool on your skin within a minute or two.  If you have ever used anything menthol, that is the type of coolness that peppermint should have.  Now, I am not a doctor so I am not prescribing medicine, just sharing with you what has worked for me.  Remember one drop of essential oil is about the equivalent of 30 cups of the same kind of tea.  One drop is very powerful.  It is always good to test out the essential oil on your arm first just to make sure you are not allergic to it in anyway.  I would not prescribe this for young children just because of the potency.  Peppermint is also excellent for upset stomach.  Just one drop diluted in water when my stomach is upset and within 5 to 10 minutes the stomach ache is gone.  It truly is amazing.  But, then again, when we remember the One who created peppermint in the first place….why should this be surprising?  Peppermint is also great for clearing your sinuses.  Rubbing a few drops on your palms and then placing them over your nose and breathing in helps you to breathe more freely when you find yourself a little cloggy.  So, give peppermint a try…I don't think you will be disappointed.  And remember to that the Lord for all the wonderful things He has created to make our lives so much better.  

Settling In to Our New Home

It seems like forever since my last blog post.  We have been so incredibly busy. We officially moved from our home in Fort Bragg/Fayetteville, NC to Wake Forest, NC.  I hope to show you pictures of our new place as soon as I can.  Right now, we are still trying to get out from under our sea of boxes!  We have met many of our neighbors and they have all been so kind and helpful.  God has given us a great neighborhood to spend the next 14 months.  The children have a large yard to play in and many slugs, toads, caterpillars, praying mantises, beetles, fireflies, snails, etc. to bring to me on an almost daily basis!  The downfall to the critter department seems to be the ticks we have found…one on me…two on my youngest son…one on my daughter…not very excited about that!  So, we do a daily tick check before bed.  

This is the town that my husband went to seminary over ten years ago.  We loved it then and were thrilled to be able to come back here, even for just a short period of time.  The pictures are of the children feeding the geese at a pond behind a local cemetery just a few miles from where we live.  When we were here last, I only had Joy to take…now I have my five blessings that are able to enjoy it.

God has been so good to be with us every step of the way during the move.  It has been a stressful one, but the Lord has watched over us through it all.  We begin school again this coming Monday…I still have some school books to find and put away and we will begin more of our routine again.  I am looking forward to that.  Although, I am sure we will be unpacking for a few more weeks to come.

Thank you to all of you that sent your sweet comments and prayed for us during this time.  I am truly grateful for it all.  I look forward to catching up with you all again real soon!  God bless!

Will be Offline for a Few Weeks

Just wanted to drop a note to all my dear readers and say that I will be offline for a few weeks.  We pick up the keys for our new home tomorrow and begin the moving process then.  We are doing some of it ourselves and will leave the rest for the moving company next week.  It will take a few weeks to get back online and resume blogging as I will not have access to my computer for a while.  I will miss catching up with you all, but look forward to doing so real soon, Lord willing.  I hope to post pictures of the new town and home we are in.  Please continue to pray for a smooth transition for us as these are trying and exciting times both.  God bless you and I will be hopefully back online soon!

Our Everyday Modesty Standards ~ Part 1

First of all, I want to thank each of you that has left your sweet comments concerning our upcoming move.  We now have about two weeks before move time.  I appreciate all your payers and thoughts for us during this time.  We are doing a partial move ourselves and then we will have packers/movers coming to finish the job.  I look forward to hopefully getting back to blogging more regularly after the move and visiting once again the lovely blogs of friends.  But, I did want to at least continue my posts on modesty, as I have gotten some questions from several of you that wish to know our family's standards on this issue.  Once again, I want to make this clear that this in OUR family's standard and I am in no way saying that ours must be yours.  You must determine that after prayer and discussion with your spouse.  Having said that, there are things I do feel are inappropriate for any Christian.  So, our family began our modesty standards with what we felt were positively inappropriate.  From there, we expanded it to include areas we felt would be most glorifying to the Lord and would not be something that would cause a brother to stumble.

We do not feel it is appropriate for a woman to show any part of her body that should remain private.  Therefore, shirts or dresses that show cleavage of any kind are not allowed.  We personally do not allow any tank tops, spaghetti straps, halter tops, or anything similar.  We have found that clothes that do not have much fabric on top, often show parts of a woman's body even when she doesn't realize it.  To remain modest at all times one must think about particular types of clothes as one moves.  If you are wearing these types of tops and you raise your arms, or you bend over, it is easy to show the breast area along with your undergarments.  We do not think it is ever appropriate for a young lady to show any of her undergarments, even the straps, so our shirt standards reflect this.  We do not wear sleeveless tops either.  Not because we think it is a sin to do so, but we have found that if a sleeveless top does not fit snugly around the arm, it would be easy to expose oneself.  To check these shirts for modesty, have your daughters put them on and then stoop down, reach up, over, etc. to see if they pass your modesty test.  We also have decided to wear shirts that fit closely to the neck.  Once again, we have found scoop neck shirts, even though they may not show cleavage, tend to fit looser and a woman could easily become immodest by simply reaching over and picking up a child.  Now, you could always reach down and hold your shirt while bending over, but we were concerned about that one time we may forget.  And young girls may even have a harder time remembering in their play time.  If a shirt shows the outline of your undergarments, then that should be a good indication that it is too tight.  So, this is basically our standard for shirts and tops of dresses.  

So this doesn't get too long, I will post a part 2 later.  One thing I wish to stress.  Don't forget the goal of modesty.  1)  To bring honor to Christ.  2)  To not be a stumbling block for a brother.  Therefore, I would rather err on the side of too much caution than not enough.  I have heard people say that since we have liberty in Christ, we can dress any way we wish.  Our liberty is in our freedom from sin, not in our freedom to sin, and causing our brothers to stumble God causes sin.  I hope this has helped with some of your questions.  Once again, this is our standard, you must do what you feel God is leading you to do.  May we seek to glorify Him and give Him honor in every area of our lives, even in our dress.  God bless you!