Weekend Reflection

I have missed several Weekend Reflections, therefore I made it a point to post this week.

• This was our last week of Upward basketball. Therefore I am looking forward to a break in our schedule.

• I was able to get caught up on a lot of jobs around the house
  


• We have been dealing with Pink Eye. Bethany had it on Sunday you can read about that here. Jody was sent home from school with it on Wednesday. It wasn't a big deal and it's over now.
  


• On Friday I went to a neighborhood friend’s house for a ladies night. We had dinner, talked and scrap booked. FUN!
  


• On Saturday we had some friends over. The guys watched a bad science fiction movie together, while we women discussed our lives, and the kids played together. We all laughed so hard and enjoyed each other. It was fun.
  


• On Sunday I enjoyed church. We went out for lunch and both girls went to a friend’s house so John & I had a nice afternoon together with no children.

Our week ended on a good & fun time. I hope your week has been good. If you are participating in weekend reflections let me know in my comment section and I will come and visit you.

Visit Judi at mommy-of-two for more weekend reflections.

Until Later,
~Betty~

SMART Habit Saturday

It is SMART Habit Saturday time again

If you have wanted to set some goals and make some changes in your household and have not yet participated in SMART Habit Saturday now would be the time to get started. I have some great news.

Anyone who participates in SHS for two weeks in a row by the end of March will be entered into a drawing to win Laura’s 5 free Organizing Bags, three large and two small!

Now that would be enough motivation for me to start participating. I would love to have these Organizing Bags. I think I want them as much as An Ordanary Mom wants them. lol Therefore, if you have been thinking about joining go here for more information and join us.

I received a phone call this week from a friend who does not blog and she told me that she has been following my blog and has been encouraged by me recording my goals that she has set certain goals for her house. I was shocked, but encouraged. It is a great feeling knowing that as I write about what is helping me, someone is reading it and in turn is making a difference in them.


Okay time for my new goal this week. For Week 8 my new goal is to do a load of laundry once a day. I plan to start a load in the morning after my shower before I get the girls up and ready. Then when I get back from taking Jody to school I will put the load in the dryer.

How I did this past week:
Week 1 Clean kitchen sink nightly I have been doing very good with this goal. This has become an established habit.

Week 2 Drink 8 glasses of water a day I have struggled with this one this week. I need to work on this and just do it.

Week 3 Exercise Monday – Friday I have struggled with this also. I was doing pretty well for a few weeks and now it’s hard to get back into it. I am going to refocus this week. I have started a new post on Fridays that I am calling Fitness Friday. I will post there what my progress is on losing weight and getting healthier.

Week 4 Read my Bible daily I have done better with this goal than the last two, but still need to work on this.

Week 5 Sort my girls clothes I have completed this and have gotten rid of 6 bags of clothes. YEAH! :)

Week 6 Organizing tax receipts With the help from my husband this chore has been completed. YEAH! :)

Week 7 Continue with same goals I was able to complete some goal, but not all. I will continue on.

If you want to participate please visit The Lazy Organizer here.

Until Later,

Betty

Fitness Friday

Wanting to find a way to use my blog habit addiction hobby to help me be a better person and help me achieve many of my goals, I am going to start a weekly post that I will call Fitness Friday. I have been wanting to loose weight and have been making some good efforts in my weight loss journey. However, I am always looking for ways to keep myself accountable and encouraged to achieve my weight loss goals. I read Mel's blog about her weight loss journey and Motivation Moments and these are encouraging. Then I recently just found The Clef of the Rock blog and Sarah does a Fitness Friday post where she shares her knowledge about health and fitness.

I decided that I am going to start posting a Fitness Friday post where I will record my weight loss journey. I want to use this as a time to share my progress, the ups & downs of the past week, and what I learn on this weight loss journey. I will also report any weight changes I may have gained, lost , or remained the same. I will also record any goals I have regarding weight loss, fitness, or health.

Let me encourage you to comment on these posts and let me know you are reading that way it will help me to be accountable and stay motivated to continue on my weight loss journey. I am also open to any thoughts, suggestions, and ideas you would like to share.

I will start this 1st Fitness Friday off by saying that I have not done very well this past week, which is a big reason why I want to start recording my progress here. I was doing really good there for a few weeks, drinking my water & exercising daily - then I missed a couple of days and now it is hard to get back into the routine. My fitness goal for this next week is to drink 8 glasses of water a day and to exercise 5 times, 3 days of aerobic and 2 days of toning.

I will let you know next week how it goes. Again please let me know what you think and any suggestions you may have to help. Also please share anything that you have found that has helped you to become healthier or has helped you lose weight.

Until Later,
~Betty~

You are Invited!

I'm sure most everyone has already heard that 5 minutes for mom is hosting the Ultimate Blog Party party from March 2 - 9. You can click here to find out all the details of the party. There will be prizes, food, and a chance to hang out with friends and to meet new ones. Consider this your invitation to stop by my blog and say "Hi!" I will also be going around and meeting new people (bloggers). This should be a lot of fun.

Also "Get Out of that Pit" by Beth Moore is one of the books that I checked out at our church library a couple of weeks ago. I was excited when I learned that Boomama & Robin had the idea to start a book club discussing this book. I have never been in a book club before, but am going to join this one. On March 9, we are to post our thoughts about this book and link back to Robin. If you want to find out more about this or want to join please click here for Boomama or here for Robin. This will be a busy week for Blogg World, but O so much fun. Now we can end the week of parting on a spiritual note! Please join me for this great week!

Until Later,

Betty

Not Plan A, or B, but Plan C!

It started out as a normal Sunday morning. Everyone getting up late, rushing around, girls fighting and trying to get out the door to arrive at church early – NOT! In order to throw us off and think we have entered a different world our Sunday morning was calm, which is not normal. The girls woke up to get dress and helped each other and did not fight with each other or with John & me. I had time to cook dinner and put it in the crock pot for after church. In the meanwhile John was packing extra clothes for after church. Apparently, we did not communicate about our plans for after church – which never ever ever happens in any marriage :). I mean how dare him not to read my mind and know that I was planning on coming home after church and not sticking around all day at church and wait for the evening class we are taking. (Plan A) Why would it be important for me to “use my words” (as I tell my kids) and tell him? I’m appalled! lol :) Our first 1 – 2 years of marriage it seemed like all our fights I mean discussions always had the phase “I am not a mind reader.” I have gotten better after 11 years, but occasionally I slip and now we have learned to laugh at each other and instead of having “discussions” about it we make jokes about it.

You see we live 25 miles away from the church that we attend and it takes about 30 -35 minutes one way to get to church. So when we go to church in the morning and have to be back in the evening we don’t always go all the way home. There has been children’s quiz practice in the afternoon so we have stayed for that. Now quizzing is over for the year and we have more time off on Sunday afternoons. That is why I was thinking it would be nice to come home after church for a few hours. Apparently, that’s not what John was thinking.

Well, when we did end up communicating about our plans and since I started dinner and he had packed clothes to change we decided to take our meal to church and we would go over to our friend, Caryl’s, house (who lives closer to our church) and combine meals. (Plan B) Now Caryl & I have been friends since childhood and I would feel comfortable to invade I mean “invite myself and family” over to her house at the last minute. This is my friend that last Sunday I took the freedom and invited myself and family over to her house when she & her family were out of town. A little to my credit, the night before on the phone she did mention that she was thinking about inviting us over so we didn’t have to come all the way home and then go back to church. I also want to mention that I would not take this kind of freedom in every friendship that I have.

Okay back to our Sunday plans. We get to church, plugged in the crock pot, got a snack from our café area, sign our children into their classrooms and were getting ready to go into worship service.

Then plan C started to happen. Bethany’s Sunday school teacher, who is also a nurse, brought Bethany to us and said she had pink eye and could not stay around the other children. John (sigh) looks at me and says I knew we should have just stayed in bed this morning. As a mom, I felt embarrassed that I brought my daughter to church with pink eye. Therefore, we left church and went to Wal-mart to see what kind of medicine we could find over the counter and then we were going home for the afternoon. We talked to the pharmacist and he recommended us not to buy something over the counter and to call our doctor and see if he would just call in a prescription. Not knowing what to expect since it was a Sunday, I called. To my surprise the doctor’s office had a doctor on call and they did just call in a prescription and we just had to pick it up and because of our insurance it didn’t cost us anything.

Although we missed church and spent the time at Wal-mart we were home for a calm & relaxing afternoon at home. I even got to watch some of the Daytona 500 and called my niece to pick on her about her favorite driver, who is different than mind, before I went back to church for our class.

Now only if every Sunday was like this just minus the pink eye and the trip to Wal-mart.

Until Later,
Betty

SMART Habit #7

I’m back for SMART Habit Saturday. If you are new to SMART Habit Saturday you can click here to learn about it.

I have to be honest here and I did not do very well at all with my goals this week. I took the week off from Blogging so I could get a lot of work done. Do you think that happened? NOOOOOOOOO! In reality I got less done. That doesn’t make sense to me, but that’s what happened to me this week. I think that by blogging it keeps me accountable to what I need to do and reading other blogs encourages me and gives me ideas of how to keep balance in my life and get done what I need to get done. I was considering quitting blogging; however I have decided to continue and to use my blog to meet my needs.

Therefore, I am not adding a new habit this week, but will try to get back on track and continue to work on my current goals to make them a habit. I did realize this week that keeping my kitchen sink clean has pretty much become a must do habit. My husband has even realized that this must be done and has helped out many times. Now I need to get working on getting my other goals to become a must do habit. Speaking of my other goals, I have to share what my husband gave me for Valentine’s Day. One of my one time goals was to organize my taxes and receipts and I have been struggling with this. For Valentine’s Day John agreed to take an evening (and longer) of his and do this task for me. He is even setting up a system on the computer so that it will be easy to enter the information monthly from this point on and has agreed to take over that job for the next year. I received the best gift ever and money wise it did not cost us a cent – just a lot of time & effort. Oh how grateful I am!

The other goal I did Okay on this week was my devotions. I wanted to spend daily time reading the Bible. I did not read the Bible everyday this week, but I did spend a lot of time in prayer and writing in my prayer journal. This week I am planning to spend more time reading the Bible and praying.

Good luck to everyone who is participating in SMART Habits. If you would like to join or cheer on those who have, please visit Lara, The Lazy Organizer.

Until Later,
~Betty~

Jody, Upward, Salvation

I know I’m supposed to be taking a break from blogging this week, but I just had to share this story. I want to give you the background information before I tell you what I really want to tell you.

Jody, my 5 year old, is in Upward Cheerleading and I am the adult coach. She has practice every Monday and her games are on Saturdays. At last Saturday’s game her behavior was so bad that, as her mother (not her coach), I took her out of her game and made her go sit with John, her dad, in the sound booth. I know that Jody has a stubborn streak in her and can make life difficult at times. However, on Saturday I saw intense disobedient streak in her and she was determined not to do what I wanted her to do. This was very different than what I have seen in her before. Therefore, as a mom, I felt very discouraged and defeated and not sure how I was going to handle the behavior. After I separated Jody and she had time to sit, her behavior did get better for the rest of the day. –Good thing!

Monday night we had cheer practice. During every Upward practice there is a set time for a short devotional. This past Monday our devotional was the plan of salvation. I went through the material, explained that sin was the bad things that we do and that Jesus wants to forgive us if we ask him. I also explained that Jesus wants us to live for him and come into our hearts and lives. Then I prayed for each of the girls. I told the girls if they want to or if they do ask Jesus into their hearts to let me know.

Wednesday morning as I was getting the girls ready for school, Jody came running out of the bathroom and here is the conversation:

Jody: I have been talking, but really it was praying to Jesus.

Mom: Well that’s good

Jody: I prayed that Jesus would make me die

Mom: WHAT?

Jody: Yea that way He could make me again and He could make me good.

Mom: Oh! You mean to make you a new creation

Jody: Yeah. I just asked Jesus into my heart and to forgive me of the bad things I do like you said at cheerleading. I’m not going to talk anymore and I’m going to be good at cheerleading.

As my heart was melting and wanted to cry. This made a mom very proud and happy.

You know that Jody was busy on the phone and at church Wednesday night telling anyone who would listen what she did. Not only was I proud, but she was too.

I am so glad that we put the girls in Upward this year. Jody is a little young for Upward, but I talked to those in charge and asked them if I helped out if I could sign Jody up for cheerleading now there will be eternal benefits for them saying yes. Thanks Doug & Michelle.

I am feeling very honored and blessed.

(Of course you would know that Satan is not happy and is fighting me this week. I have really been struggling with my oldest daughter, Bethany. This will encourage us to pray more.)

Until Later,
Betty

Blogging Break

I have a lot to do this week so I will be taking a break form blogging. I hope to return on Saturday for SMART Habits.

Along with the things I need to accomplish this week, I am going to be doing a lot of soul searching and deal with some issues that the Lord is laying on my heart.

Please be praying for me this week while I deal with the issues of Parenting, Family Time, Job, Financial, Time Management, Blogging, and Church Activities - bacisly LIFE! The Lord is telling me that I need to make some changes and I need to be honest with myself and accept what the Lord is telling me. Hopefully, I will be back next week and let you know what God is doing in my life.

Until Later,
Betty

Weekend Reflections

WEEKEND REFLECTIONS!

It has been a while since I have posted a weekend reflection so I thought I would do one this week since I have some time before Monday comes.

This week started out pretty good. On Sunday a friend our mine from church that has been dealing with a lot of hard issues decided to give his life over to the Lord and become a Christian. We have been praying so hard for him. PRAISE THE LORD! The would be the best think that has happened this week.

On a less exciting thing Bethany, my 9 year old, had a Bingo night at her school. We all went as a family and had a good time. Then we had some relaxing time at home.

Throughout this week I have had special moments with my husband. He has just been extra nice to me this week. Don't get me wrong he is always good to me, but this week it's just been a little extra and I have enjoyed it. I am so blessed to have John as my husband. I am so thankful that he supports me with what I do and what I want to do.

Friday night we invited two families over for dinner and a movie and that was fun. We did something different and had breakfast for dinner. We watched "Facing the Giants". The movie has a very good message and we all enjoyed watching it.

Saturday was Upward and we were at our church all day long. I really struggled with Jody's (my five year old) behavior. I ended up taking her out of her cheerleading game. I made her sit in the sound booth with her dad, while I went back and coached the rest of the cheerleaders. After she was away from the situation she seemed to calm down and did better the rest of the day.

Today, Sunday, was a good time at church. We had a Sunday School Class party after church. It was a going away party for one of our members who is moving out of state. I am president for the class, therefore I had certain responsibilities to help out with for the party. It all went well and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. Then we had some time to relax at a friend's house, before having to go back to church for a class we are taking and kids praise team practice.

This week went pretty well, it went fast and we stayed busy.

Until Later,
Betty

SMART Habit Saturday

It is SMART Habit Saturday time again. If you want to know more about Smart Habit Saturday please visit The Lazy Organizer here.

Being able to list my goals and trying to set up daily routines and posting them here on my blog is helping me to accomplish my goals. Although I know there are still things I need to work on, but I will get there one step at a time.

I also want to mention that I am really enjoying Joe’s goals. It is fun to see the check marks and to see where I stand for the week.

I have noticed that working to meet my goals have become more important to me and is starting to become a habit. My day does not seem complete and I feel like I can’t go to bed at night until I know I have completed my goals. I’m also thinking about my daily goals early in the day and trying to accomplish them early so when bedtime comes I don’t have to fight myself to complete them.

My goals are listed on my sidebar. This week I completed all my daily goals except I missed one day drinking all my water. Then with my one time goal of sorting through my girls clothes I did not complete the task. I worked on it 2 times this week. Therefore, I will continue with that goal for this next week too.

My new goal for this week is another one time goal. I have an in home child care business. It is now tax time, which means I have to go through all my receipts, expenses, and income…. I know I really should do this throughout the year, but I always seem to wait until tax time to do it. This year I created a system to sort my receipts by month and I have been following it. However, now I have to go through those receipts and record all my expenses. Therefore, this week my goal is to go through 1 month each day. My wonderful husband has agreed to help me and do 6 months of the year and I will do 6 months of the year. I am hoping to have this completed this week so then we can send in our taxes and be done. If you don’t see me this week around Blog World just know that I am working hard on my goals and really want to complete them. I will be back next week for sure and report how I did on the goals.

Please visit Lara The Lazy Organizer to see the other SMART Habit Saturday participants or to join yourself.

Until Later,
~Betty~

Ouch that hurt!

I have been a Christian for awhile, I attend church every Sunday, I listen to Christian radio, I read Christian books, and I even visit Christian blogs, however this week while I was reading in Matthew, I was convicted.

Last week I made daily Bible reading as one of my goals. At first I didn’t know where to really start. Therefore, I ended up reading The Sermon on the Mount in Matthew. This was not new scripture to me, but I thought I would be encouraged and reminded of certain scriptures. I was not expecting to be convicted. You see I have been dealing with some temptations in my life and have been praying about them. Therefore, as I started reading the scriptures, God met with me and my heart, and in a lovingly way convicted me where I needed to be convicted. This passage also reminded me that when we face temptation that we need to resist and run from it. Therefore, if you see me running by, just know that I am running from temptation.

It doesn’t matter how long we have been Christians or the Christian things that we do, God knows our hearts and things that other people can’t see. God reminded me that He is not only interested in what I do; he is also interested in my heart and my attitude. After reading in the Bible this week I felt like God & I met below the surface of the “Christian” things and we met on the heart level. Please don’t misunderstand me. I believe that Church, Christian books, Christian music, Christian blogs, and Christian friends are blessings from God, have a special place in my heart, and God uses those things in my life. However, those things can not take the place that only God and His word can fill in our lives. God wants to connect with us deeply and teach us how to live for Him.

Please forgive me if what I’m trying to say and share isn’t coming out right. I guess all I’m trying to say is; it doesn’t matter how long we have been a Christian or all the right things that we do, God is still working on us. Just because we have been a Christian for awhile there are times when we still need to be corrected. God wants to draw us closer and closer to Him. He loves us no matter what. This is what I experienced this week in my Bible reading and I wanted to share it with you. I hope this all makes sense, if not Oh Well, just know I met with God this week and it was way overdue.

Until Later,
Betty

Chocolate

I can relate! Can you?

SMART Habit Saturday #5

It is SMART Habit Saturday time again. If you want to know more about Smart Habit Saturday please visit The Lazy Organizer here.

Week 1 My goal was to clean my kitchen sink nightly. This week with combine help of my husband I have completed this goal.

Week 2 My goal was to drink 64 oz (8 glasses of water) daily. This week I have done this everyday, but one day.

Week 3 My goal this week was to exercise everyday Monday – Friday. This was the hardest for me this week. I had several days that I just did not feel like it and did not want to do it. However, I did meet this goal and exercised everyday. I have started an exercise streak and didn’t want to break it, so I think that helped a lot.

Week 4 My goal this week was to read my Bible everyday. As I worked on this the Lord showed me things about my life, which I am hoping to post about later this week. I did miss one day this week.

Overall I think I did pretty good, but it was not always easy. I am finding that this does keep me accountable to do things I should be doing. Thank you Lara for creating SMART Habit Saturday. Now on to this week:

Since I started SMART Habit Saturday I have choose goals that I want to make a daily task. This week I want to continue working on these goals and form them into a habit. However, I have a one time job that needs to be done. Therefore, this week instead of creating a daily habit I want to work on a one time job that needs done. Currently, I need to go through my girls clothes. I have realized that they have too many clothes. I have some friends that pass on to me their daughter’s clothes when they grow out of them and we are running out of room. I know my girls have clothes in their closet that no longer fits them or they don’t like. I know I am overdue of going through them, but I can’t seem to find the time to do what I need to do. Because these SMART Habits Saturday goals seem to keep me accountable and I try hard to accomplish what I decide to work on I am going to do a one time goal and go through my girls clothes. Hopefully after this week I can get my bedroom back (I have most of the girl’s clothes in piles on my bedroom floor). I will report back next week as to how I did.

If you would like to be apart of SMART Habit Saturday, please visit Lara here.

Until Later
~Betty~