Friday Funny

A True Friend

When you are sad, I will jump on the person who made you sad like a spider monkey jacked up on Mountain Dew!

When you are blue, I will try to dislodge whatever is choking you.

When you smile, I will know you are plotting something that I must be involved in.

When you're scared, we will high tail it out of there.

When you are worried, I will tell you horrible stories about how much worse it could be until you quit whining, ya big baby!!!!

When you are confused, I will use little words.

When you are sick, stay away from me until you are well again. I don't want whatever you have....

When you fall, I'll pick you up and dust you off-- after I laugh my rear off!!

This is my oath. I pledge it to the end.
"Why?" you may ask--
Because you are my FRIEND!

This made me smile - and also made me thankful for my true friends. You know who you are :)

Special Delivery

A few weeks ago, the Nester shared a great product from Dayspring - Book Crops! I really liked them, and entered the giveaway. Didn't win, but took advantage of the discount code she shared a few days later and ordered these two. (Yes, I know I'm trying to simplify and yet I'm ordering more stuff)

Yesterday afternoon, I received that awful phone call shortly before I went to school to pick up our son. I took my Bible with me, and spent the time sitting in the pick-up line reading and praying. When I got home, there was a box sitting on the front porch. Opened it up, and got a little teary eyed as I unpacked these.

For the scriptures are indeed the living word of God - and these words were balm to my soul yesterday. I don't need to understand; I just need to trust HIM. The Great, Unchanging God of Creation is in charge, and I can rest in that promise.

Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don't try to figure out everything on your own.

Listen for God's voice in everything you do, everywhere you go;

He's the one who will keep you on track.
Proverbs 3:5-6, The Message

Prayer Request

After today's earlier crazy clothes post, I'm back with a request for prayer. As I'd shared a couple weeks ago, we are so excited to have finally found a church home... Well, I just received a phone call and there's a major issue (going back to something that took place before we even visited) and basically the church is splitting. Wow. It's not over something silly like carpet colors, and I'm just shocked to be caught up in something like this. Hubby and I will be praying about how we fit into the picture, and we'd really appreciate your prayers not only for us but for the body of believers, that we can all be drawn closer to God and earnestly seek HIS will.

Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good. As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him— you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ... But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us. I Peter 2:1-5, 9-12

Do you feel pretty?

Cuz frankly I usually don't. I'm not exactly supermodel material, but more what you'd call thick ;) Even as a kid, I was always the "sturdy" one in the bunch. And while it was hard at times, I was generally content to be the smart and/or funny one. And I'm still OK with that... but I'm not OK with rationalizing unhealthy habits. My body is God's temple (I Cor 6:19-20) and I need to honor that. I am eating better (specifically watching portion control - I generally eat decent stuff, just too much of it) and have been working out 3x a week. I have a loooooong way to go, but am already excited about the changes I'm seeing in my body. I have two active kidlets that I'm trying to keep up with, plus I want to have some energy left for my hubby at the end of the day...

So where am I going with all this? As part of my down in the lumpy-dumps routine, I generally just threw on whatever clothing was clean. Now I wasn't one to hang out in sweats and stained t-shirts, but I had fallen into the mommy cliche of denim on the bottom and a simple knit top whenever we went out. About a year ago I decided I needed to kick things up a notch and began picking up some new wardrobe pieces - namely accessories. Basically, I made it my goal to have 1 accessory on every time we stepped out of the house. Kind of silly, but it really does make a difference. That turquoise v-neck t-shirt with tan capris looks much more impressive with a funky necklace. Or a patterned scarf. Or even chandelier earrings!

I'm particularly into necklaces these days - and I'm amazed at how many places I can find them. Payless Shoes has some good ones. I have a nice stash from etsy, including scrabble pendants and even some gorgeous glass pieces. And how about Kohl's? I picked up 2 necklaces there last week (from the junior department, no less) for less than $15 total. I have the mama bird necklace from The Vintage Pearl, and I get compliments on it (and questions) whenever I wear it. I love earrings, too, but have to be careful with those as I tend to get itchy from the cheap metal; Simply Whispers to the rescue! Target also carries a decent selection of hypoallergenic stuff, and I don't mind spending $5 on a pair of earrings that I know I'll only wear for a year or two.

I recently discovered Shari Braendel, and I like her down to earth approach - sort of a What Not To Wear from a Christian perspective. She's recently posted spring wardrobe ideas, and I appreciated the visuals. I also like this slideshow of fashion mistakes - fit really does matter! I still don't have a supermodel body, but I am trying to dress a bit better and be mindful of the image I present.

Peeking In

• Wanna know what I've been up to? Well, I've cooked a total of 4 pounds of beans this past week - they're now divided into 2 & 3 cup containers and stashed in the freezer, ready whenever I am. Canned beans run 62¢ each down here, so this is a substantial savings.
• After I finished taxes, Daughter happily took over the computer so she could play Chuzzle.
• The brown tile floors are not what I personally would have chosen, and I decided that a bit of shine would probably make me dislike them less... turns out I was right! Amazing what some "advanced polymer technology" and a dollar store mop can do. Oh, and a some good old womanpower, too. The entire living room floor has officially been done - yes, every bit of furniture was moved, and the floor got TWO coats. Took me a couple days to get in done (between waiting for stuff to dry and having hubby help move the entertainment center) and I'm quite proud of the finished results.
• And finally, I would just like to say that allergies are kicking my hiney this year. I've had minor issues ever since having kids, but this Texas spring evidently has some pollens that cause my sinuses to seize up while simultaneously making me teary-eyed and generally irritable. I also seem to have come down with a bit of a cold, so the combo is downright nasty.

I realized that I have yet to share a full picture of the living room - so here 'tis! I know the lighting isn't exactly ideal; hard to get a good pic with so many windows. You don't see the entertainment center (would be on the left), and there's a kitchen passthrough/breakfast bar thingee behind the couch in the foreground (it's a 2' x 4' window with a counter that juts into the room 16"). The window treatments were all left behind, and while I can't say I adore the colors, they work OK (and I *do* like the general style) You can see a bit of the green accent wall here by the fireplace, which was originally the same orange as the drapes. Eww! And that cool trunk? Well, that was an fabulous find at Sam's last week - a friend and I decided to head down because we both needed a few things, and this just happened to catch my eye as we were passing the furniture aisle. It was actually a set of three (the other 2 are currently stacked in the front room, as we have yet to decided where they'll permanently reside) and the last 1 left so had been substantially discounted. I've been wanting a trunk for a coffee table for years, but anything that I like is way out of our price range; rather than settling for something, we'd said that we'd wait until we found something we really liked and make the investment... Once again, God provided a little want in an unexpected way!

Friday Funny

Seriously, you *HAVE* to watch this all the way through. The ending is classic!

Hello again!

I know, I haven't been posting much these days... what can I say, life is busy! The most exciting bit of news to share is that we've FINALLY found a church. Seriously, I cannot tell you how this thrills me to my very soul... I have so missed the fellowship that can only be found with a body of believers. The search was filled with many bumps along the way (I could probably compile quite a list of craziness) but I know that God ultimately brought us right where we need to be, and we've definitely come to rely on Him even more throughout the process. In other news...

• We had a lovely Easter celebration, complete with cascarones (Mexican confetti eggs to you gringos ;) - hopefully will have some time to get pics posted soon
• Son is doing better overall with school, but still not where he needs to be
• Will be registering our daughter for kindergarten next week!
• Continuing to work on making this house "ours"
• We have a number of family & friends who will be visiting in the next few months (hooray!!)
• Planning a trip to Montana this summer!!!!!!!
• Hubby is continuing to drive into Mexico 3x/week, and in case you haven't heard, things aren't exactly shiny & happy down there right now
• Had the exterminator here for a re-spray as we've seen too many of these guys lately; they were mainly coming in 1 spot, and his best guess is that there were some eggs laid in a pipe. Ewwwwwwww.
• Feeding the family. Been trying a lot of new recipes as Barbacoa and this one with Swiss Chard. Yum!

Enough for now - I'll be finishing up the taxes tonight. This is the first time ever filing in April. Oh well, still done in time...

Good Friday

There is only one explanation for God's sacrifice for us. It is not us. It is "the riches of His grace" (Eph 1:7). It is all free. It is not a response to our worth. It is the overflow of His infinite worth. In fact, that is what divine love is in the end: a passion to enthrall undeserving sinners...
-John Piper (from The Passion of Jesus Christ)

April Fool's!!

This is the part where I announce that I'm pregnant with nonuplets (take that, OctoMom!!), or we've decided to join a commune in Alberta, Canada. I actually slacked off this year and didn't really do any "pranks," but I did want to share these two that made me crack up:

GMail has a vowel outage
Starbucks to offer new drink sizes