Housewarming

We had some friends over for a housewarming on Oct 26, 2009. Our Pastor came and had a very special dedication ceremony and blessing of the house. We want our home to be use by God to raise Godly seed, win the lost, care for the broken, and to be a place of refuge from the world.
Unless the Lord builds the house

they labor in vain that build it.

Psalm 127:1 Our Pastor in the living room.




Dave made his famous wings. Hanging in the dining room.

The guys in the back yard with Dakota.

Apple Picking

We went apple picking with Marissa and her sister Joanna at a local orchard. It was a bit chilly but we had a good time. It was the last day of the season to pick apples, and we

made it just in time. They close at 6 and we got there at 5:55.

Afterwards we went to their farm store and got an apple cider doughnut and some of their delicious mulled cider. Janelle had fun holding the apples and also learning the sign for apple. We watched the sun set on the first day of day light savings time at around 6:15, and I took a picture of the full moon. Looking forward to going back in the spring for blueberries and strawberries. It was a beautiful day.

Happy Anniversary

Yesterday I celebrated my 4 year anniversary. I can't believe it's only been 4 years. It seems like a life time since I fell in love with my sweetheart. We have shared so many wonderful memories. We have a beautiful baby girl and we just recently bought our first house. We have grown so much these past years. Especially me. I was so immature when I got married. But Rhondale has been so patient with me. He is a wonderful man, and I admire him so much for his faithfulness to me and to God. I look forward to soooooo many more years of marriage, and I pray that God would continue to make me a help meet for him.

I'm Back

After a long hiatus from Blogville, I'm back.

Auntie Marissa Comes For Lunch

Marissa came over for lunch today. We call her Auntie because her and her husband Dave are Janelle's Godparents. It is such a blessing to have such good, Godly friends. We had a great time of fellowship and food. Marissa made these awesome sandwiches, brought some chips and these cute little apricot drinks and I provided some fruit. These sandwiches were so good I decided to post the recipe so you can try them on your own. The make up is as follows:
Pumpernickel bread
Herbed Mayo
Cucumber sliced very thin
Thinly sliced turkey breast
Water Crest
That's it. Put it all together and you have one of the best sandwiches you will ever eat. After lunch we compared my baby pictures with Janelle. She looks like me in some but not all of the pictures. Rhondale is still winning in the "who does Janelle look like" contest. But that's fine with me. I happen to think Rhondale is rather cute. After that we went for a walk in the park. It was very nice out today. Sunny and 60. Janelle had a good time as Marissa and I took turns carry her. She is definitely getting heavy. We came back to the house and Auntie said good-bye. We'll see her tomorrow at church for Good Friday service. But what a great day.

Decluttering my life

God recently exposed an area of my life that needs some work. I am a recovering pack rat and with the help of my loving husband I am decluttering my life. I was praying the other day that God would show me how to be a good mother and wife. I have been very frustrated about having all of these wonderful desires in my heart, and with great enthusiasm exclaiming before I before I go to bed "tomorrow is the day I change my life, I achieve all my hope and dreams, I accomplish the impossible", well maybe not quite. But I always have great aspirations for tomorrow only to lay my head on my pillow at night and say "what did I do today?" My heart has been so grieved as I watch my little girl's life passing by so quickly and fear I will lay my head on a pillow 20 years from now and sigh "Oh, all the things I wanted to teach her, wanted to show her, wanted to impart to her, all the ways I wanted to show my husband that I loved him, respected him, or was just thinking about him, all the people I wanted to reach out to, friends I wanted to connect with, and family that needed my love. But, what did I do today?" I start the day with a list of things to do, but I find myself sinking under it's heavy weight, powerless to accomplish the task at hand. I know my emotions are partly if not wholly to blame for my condition. I do the things that make me feel good at the time, and pay the price at the end of the day with disappointment and regret. Denny Kenaston in his message "The Three Mysterious influences in the Home", here, talks about how children absorb their environment. And how it is our responsibility as parents to create an environment that will foster children with heart towards God and their parents. We know that God is a God of order. Everything he created has purpose and proper place. Well I can't say the same for my home. And when your environment is cluttered so is your life. I'm not sure which one come first, a cluttered mind or a cluttered home, but they definitely lend themselves to each other, like a vicious cycle. Clutter drains your energy and blocks a healthy flow of progress. WELL I'VE HAD ENOUGH!!!!! I'm breaking this cycle and decluttering my home. I want to teach my daughter how to care for the things God has entrusted her with. And she will only learn from watching how mommy cares for her home, herself, and her belongings. I'm glad God has been gracious and showed this to me before months and years were wasted.
I will keep you updated with my progress. I know this is an attitude change for me, and it won't come by my simply throwing away some stuff. Pray that God would help me.
I know he cares.

Below is an article I found on how clutter affect your life.


Here are 10 ways excessive clutter can affect you and your life:


1. Family

Clutter causes irritability, resentment and stress that leads to temper tantrums, outbursts, and overall disharmony (especially, if people are having to deal with "other people's clutter". You may start to feel like you aren't a good parent or aren't a good example for your kids
Excessive clutter can cause depression, acting out, bad behavior in children due to their inability to focus caused by the clutter.

2. Relationships

Causes conflicts often due to chronic lateness
Can keep you from socializing because you don't have the energy or can't find clothes to go out. Keeps you from getting close to people because you don't entertain or want to have people visit you in your home

3. Loss of Self-Esteem

Causes you to feel like you aren't capable or are missing some basic skill that everyone else "seems" to have so you feel bad about yourself - the truth is you are not alone, many people have issues dealing with clutter

4. Emotionally

Excessive clutter often cause feelings of shame, guilt, anger and embarrassment that holds you back.
Clutter drains your energy - and you don't realize it till it's gone. Every item in your home has an energy to it. When items go a long time unused, unloved and uncared for, they become stuck, stagnant energy that actually physically drains you of your energy.

5. Physical Health & Stress

The stress caused by clutter is enormous. Every time you can't find something, or an argument flares up with a loved one, or you can't relax because you worry about all the things you need to do, but can't till you get the clutter cleared, your stress levels increase. Stress in turn, lowers your immunity and resistance and so you may have frequent, persistent colds.
Clutter can make it more difficult to eat healthy, cause headaches, fatigue, sinus problems and allergies and more.

6. Mental Health

Clutter decreases your ability to enjoy life. It causes stress, confusion, inability to focus, and often leads to depression. Sometimes clutter is initially caused by depression, but clutter also makes it nearly impossible to recover from depression. In my experience, once people start releasing their clutter, their energy comes back and the depression gets better, sometimes it goes away for good. Some people are extremely sensitive to their environments and just never realized what a difference it could make.
Even in people who don't have ADD, clutter causes ADD like symptoms.

7. Safety & Hygiene

In extreme clutter, people have a hard time walking without tripping or bumping into things. Often there are things hidden in the clutter that are very unsafe for children. I've seen some cases where a young child is pretty much confined to a playpen all the time because it just isn't safe to be out of the playpen.
Inability to clean cluttered areas can lead to extreme dust and even mold and mildew that exacerbates and even causes health problems in yourself and your children

8. Time

Simply having too much stuff eats up your time like crazy. Every thing you own requires some amount of care and organization. If you have too much stuff, it's much more difficult, time consuming, and expensive to get organized.
Having too much stuff often leads to procrastination and lateness which wastes your and other people's time and causes a whole host of other problems.
Not being able to find things is a huge time cost of clutter. For some people it wastes several hours every day.

9. Your Future

Holding on to clutter often grounds you in the past at the cost of your present life and your future.
Clutter distracts you from being able to think about your goals, projects, hobbies and get things done

10. Financial

Things have to have homes. Whether the home you provide for things is an extra room, a piece of furniture, or a container, you continue to pay for things long after you initially acquire them. Clutter directly costs money in the following ways:
Late fees for bills paid late
Credit card debt - often for unused stuff
Duplicates purchased because you can't find things
Some people move to larger home to accommodate the stuff
Renting storage facilities
Clutter affects people's careers. Studies have shown that people with cluttered desks and offices are less likely to be promoted. This of course affects how much money you can make.

Maybe you too can identify. Search your heart. If not pray for the rest of us.
Deborah

My Trip To Denny's

During the Super Bowl on Sunday Denny's announced that they would be serving FREE breakfast between 6am and 2pm on Tuesday Feb 3rd. Well the 3rd turned out to be cold and snowy. I had some errands to run so I decided I would eat my lunch at Denny's. What I saw when I pulled into the parking lot was astounding. People were actually standing out in the snow waiting to get their free meal. I could see if this were some 4 star restaurant or if the were giving away free cars, but it's Denny's, where the average meal cost from $7-$10. Well, I wasn't about to stand out in the snow with my 2 month old waiting for food. So I decided to come back after I had run my errands to see if the line had gone down. About an hour later I returned to see that there was no outside line. So I parked and went inside to find people on top of people. I stood there with this guy breathing his cigarette breath down my neck for about 30 seconds, and decided to leave again. As I left I pondered what happens psychologically when people hear that they can get something for free. I have to admit that I was drawn by the notion. But to stand in the snow for a $7 meal just didn't pan out in the "it was worth it" department of my brain. I wondered if these same people would stand in the snow if someone was passing out $7 cash. Being hungry by this point, I drove down the street to Wendy's where I ordered, paid for and received my food in less than 60 seconds, all for what I would have left as a tip at Denny's. What I learned from this experience is that free isn't always worth it.