Success!

The first day of 7th grade was a success! Yeah! As excited as Jake was, I knew it would be. He really is such a good student. His least favorite subject?...social studies. Well, God was lookin' out for him. When Jake was telling me about his day he said that his social studies teacher was SO cool. Jake thinks he's great! Maybe social studies will move up the ranks from least favorite class this year.

I did really well this morning, too. No tears! Our morning went very smoothly with no glitches whatsoever. I couldn't have asked for a better morning. Thank you God! :)

In case you haven't checked out the list of blogs I read, there's one by Sarah Markley that you really should check out. She's the sweetest woman from California. I absolutely love her writing style. She recently made a "confession" about her weight and needing to lose some of it. Her confession was done for accountability purposes. Those of you reading this who know me personally know that I have struggled with my weight for MANY years. Well, I'm here to join Sarah in her quest for weight reduction. This has been a matter of prayer for me for quite some time. I've made numerous attempts before to drop the pounds, but I don't think my heart was completely in it. Now, I've turned it all over to God and given Him complete control. So, I'm in it for the accountability also. PLEASE ask me about my progress - I will not be offended - I WANT you to do this. Keep me on my toes!

Unlike Sarah, I will not be sharing my current weight with you (sorry, just not gonna do it!). Let's just say I have a ways to go. :) Portion control is my main issue, followed closely by exercise. Last week was a successful week for portion control. I added exercise into the equation today. I'm on my way!!!

God > anxiety

This is our weekend before school begins. We have the obligatory before-school-starts haircut scheduled for today. School supplies are ready to be loaded into the backpack. Camera is ready for that ever-dreaded first day of school picture. We're all set, right? Well....

I'm already missing my Jacob. This is the first summer EVER since he's been in school that I've worked part time. We've been together pretty much every Monday and Friday of the last three months. Ya'll pray for me Monday. I have this feeling in the pit of my stomach that it's gonna be as bad as that first day of kindergarten...the brave face at school, but tears all the way home (me, not Jake!). My child is growing up - 7th grade already. Only six more first days of school. More and more I hurt as much as I love that he's growing up. I am so proud of the young man he's becoming - that's the love part. I am also realizing that the years are going by so much more quickly and that before I know it he'll be picking a college or branch of the military to go into - that's the hurt part.

God has shown me that since my mom died I have grown increasingly afraid of losing Jim or Jake. I know that He will take care of them, but I still have moments of gripping fear. Just like with Mom, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that, should something happen, they'll be with the Lord - but they will be gone from me. I know it's a selfish thought, because being with Him is our ultimate place to be. So, what do I do? I cling to Him, trust Him, believe Him. Psalm 94:19 tells us "In the multitude of my anxious thoughts within me, Your comforts cheer and delight my soul!" That's the verse I'm claiming when anxiety and fear try to grasp hold of me. Satan knows my weak spots - however, I have God's Word as my ammunition against him. As a child of God, anxiety has no place in our lives. Even though it may show up sometimes, God is stronger than it...never forget.

***All about love***

Well, to be truthful, I've had to work up the energy to write this post. I am by no means a fancy-schmancy writer, but I believe I am having writer's block. My mind can't settle on a topic.



Since my last post I've enjoyed my cousin's beautiful wedding, school shopping with Jake, and reuniting with my best friend from grade school through high school and beyond. Guess I'll just post my thoughts on each instance...



Megan's wedding: As I said, absolutely beautiful...and sweet. You could just look at the bride and groom and see the love they have for each other and how excited they were to finally join their lives into one.

School shopping with Jake: The list this year for 7th grade had a few questionable items on it, but we purchased everything anyway. Why do they really need a 3" binder - have you seen how WIDE those things are??? In the middle of walking through the selection of supplies we saw the scissors. Jake asked if he needed to get any of them, and I said no. He was SO pleased. The first year EVER he did not need to get scissors for school. Yippee! BUT, wait, that's another confirmation that my baby is growing up. Not yippee! I truly miss my grade schooler; however, I couldn't be more proud of my 7th grader. He really growing into a nice young man. Tonight was the "official end" of our school prep work. We got him registered for school, got his schedule, found his locker, and had the school pic taken. THEN, we were off to Red Lobster for the "mommy/Jake dinner while dad's out of town". A pound and a half of snow crab legs, a bowl of clam chowder, seafood stuffed flounder, grilled shrimp, crab topped linguini, and a basket of cheddar biscuits later, we're home and ready for a nap! But, there's leftovers in the fridge, and a fun time was had by all!


Reuniting with old friend: This took courage on both our parts. We've been friends since grade school - best friends. Some time after high school we had a "falling out". Can't really tell you why now. Then we mended things. About 5 or so years ago...another separation. Again...can't really tell you the cause of it. Two weeks ago, thanks to Classmates.com (not an advertisement), we again found each other.


I think the last 5 years have been the hardest of our lives. Not because we were not together as friends, but because of junk in our lives. I faced the loss of my mother, loss of grandfather, new wife for dad and strained relationship with them. She faced the end of a marriage, the loss of her home and church family, and people in the church turning on her. We're both at a much different place now in life and have both matured. (heck, we're almost 40!!) :) We had the courage to send each other messages, which led to emails, which led to an overnight visit during which we talked for about 12 hours (no tv, no nothing!). It was a fantastic visit. We live almost 2 hours apart now, so we'll be dealing with a "long distance relationship", and with school getting ready to start we'll both be busy with our childs' activities. But you know, just KNOWING the other person is there again means a lot.


...beginning a new life together, letting go a little more, new meaning to an old friendship - guess this post got a little deeper then originally thought, huh...and really - it's all about love!

I can cook...Really!!!

As I was up to my elbows in flour this afternoon making chicken and dumplings, I remembered the first meal I ever cooked for Jim.

Just to fill you in on how we became a couple.....we were set up on a blind date by a mutual friend. Prior to seeing each other face to face we spoke on the phone every night for a week - for at least 2-3 hours per night. Then we finally met and had been going out for a few days or a week when the following occurred........

Jim had just started a new job as a car salesman and was having a stressful beginning. One evening I was going to cook supper for us so we could have an evening in. In all our conversations I learned Jim loved roast and potatoes. So, like my momma tought me, I put the roast and potatoes in the crock pot that morning. That evening Jim arrived as planned. As soon as I opened the door I new it'd been a baaaad day. We immediately sat on the sofa and started talking. (Realize at this point my small 2 bedroom apartment HAD to have been full of the aroma of the cooking roast.) We continued to talk....and talk...and talk...and talk. I never mentioned the meal because we were talking - and he'd had a really bad day so I didn't want to keep him from venting. He never mentioned the meal ( I found out YEARS later) because this was the first time I cooked for him, and he had NO IDEA if I could cook or not. He didn't want to hurt my feelings by asking about it and then me have to tell him I burned it or something.

This is a story we have laughed about for all of our 14 1/2 years of marriage.

Yep, apparently the fact that I withheld food from him was not a determent. About 1 week after this event I got a nice shiny engagement ring. :)

And just so you know...we had the roast and potatoes the very next night. EVERYONE knows roast is better as leftovers!!

It's a date!

ok...so I've done some "tweaking" to my blog. And, you know, I'm a woman, so it probably won't be the last time either. I love playing with the colors, fonts, and other elements. I've enjoyed blogging more than I thought I would. It's reminded me of writing in my diary as a kid and has made me look back over my days and find the good and important memories that I might otherwise have taken for granted. I've also found a fondness of reading other people's blogs. The different writing styles I've found have been inspiring.

In my area school starts up August 18th. Could it be that Jake's summer is almost over? He and I made a date today. Between now and the 18th hubby will be gone for a few days on a business trip, leaving Jake and I with alone time. We decided that on the day he gets registered for 7th grade and gets his schedule we are also going to purchase school supplies, then -- Red Lobster. He absolutely loves this place. A friend of his got him turned on to crab legs. Oh my can he eat the crab legs! We go in, order, eat the yummy biscuits until our meals arrive, then I finish my meal while he's still cracking legs. He has a blast...and that's the important thing. We both stink like fish and need showers from his crab crackin', but we've made memories. I made sure he knew I wrote our date in my planner in INK so it can't be erased.

The time has already passed by so quickly since Jake was born, and I know the next 6 years till he's 18 will be gone before I know it. Over the last year I can tell he's growing from boy to young man. I love it and I hate it. My little boy is disappearing, but the young man he's becoming really wow's me. Last year when he left for church camp I had to get my hug and kiss before we left the house to head to church. This year? - hubby and I both got kisses and hugs right outside the bus with all the other kids watching. I love that stuff!!!

b-b-b-b-bad to the bone...

Ok, so sometimes you wanna be bad, right? Well, I figure if I'm gonna be bad I ought to be as good as I can while I'm being bad. Totally confused???

I wanted ice cream tonight!!!! Hubby took son to youth service at church so I could eat whatever I wanted and no one would ever know. I wanted to be good, but I wanted ice cream more. So...I hopped my not-so-skinny rear into my car and drove to the closest ice cream shop - one that I knew served fat free yogurt. Thank you God! I ordered a cookie dough non-fat yogurt concrete. Ok, I know the cookie dough wasn't fat free, but the yogurt was better than eating the ice cream. All I have to say is YUMMMMM!

We've tried to drop some pounds around here, but have had no luck yet. Hubby and I both began Atkins at the beginning of June. We actually made it completely through induction with no cheating. On day 15 hubby checked his blood sugar. Fasting was 130. What?!? His remark was "why am I doing this if my sugar isn't getting better"? By day 8/9 I began having a very unwelcome side effect that a lady should only experience once a month (and it wasn't THAT time). Thanks to Google I found out that this was a not-so-uncommon side effect. Well yippee for me, huh? Needless to say, we were done! I'd rather have 50 lbs to lose than have the other issue to deal with for Lord only knows how long.

We're trying to make better food choices and eat less now. At least neither of us gained back the 8 or so pounds we lost during induction. Unfortunately we both love to eat. That really stinks when you're trying to lose weight. I know it's a matter of will power and discipline. Trust me, both of these things have been made a matter of prayer.

Hey, in case I haven't said it lately - thanks for taking time out of your day to read my stuff here. I appreciate you stopping by for a moment in time...

one casualty---

We have officially owned our house for 5 years and 4 days.

When we moved in and decorated our rooms Jake was 7 years old. His room was painted cream with a wallpaper border up top of labrador retreivers. Well, Jake is now 12 and has outgrown the border. So this weekend we made a change. As you can tell from the pics above Jake wanted something different. Originally he wanted the tan color with a big black stripe around the room. Yesterday we decided that the stripe might look better if it was "moving". The room is still not put back together completely, but the pics show how the stripe turned out. We all like it...I like it more every time I go in his room.

In all the work we've done since Friday night we have only had one casualty. The first picture shows how severe the accident. Jake and Jim were in charge of the placement and painting of the stripe. Let's just say Jake got a little too close to the paint tray with his foot. :)

An important lesson we learned?....Jim and I are NOT great painters! It's all good in theory...until we put it into action. We do not like to do the prep work (taping, covering furniture, etc. Of course, we pay for it in the end. We've got some scraping to do of windows and baseboards. You can rest assured neither of us will ever be hired as professional painters!

But, now my baby has a big boy room - and I'm adjusting. He's growing up, and I can't stop it. I can only pray that he turns into the awesome man of God that his daddy is...and he's off to a great start!