Jenn rambles on

I think I pretty much failed the dinner challenge. Here’s why:

Table - not set up, no room in small apartment
Table cloth - packed in storage
Nice dishes - storage
Napkins - Christmas

But I decided to be a trooper and work with what I had. This would have been fine if I had not lost my patience at dinner time. Ok, so in the picture you can see that I got Mike to put the table top (which resides behind the couch for the time being) on the floor because I thought I could set that and have a nice dinner on the floor (I was being creative and fun, so I thought). I did set the table top with what I could find, which as you can tell was nothing fancy. You may also be able to see to the left of the picture our daughter’s mad red face as she strains to be let out of her booster seat she was strapped into. It was about 5 mintues later that she was running free, the table was un-set, and we had plates on our laps because my idea of a nice dinner did not include listening to a 17 month old scream while we eat. Here’s the good news. We did not…I repeat, did NOT turn on the tv!! Good for us! So it wasn’t a total failure I guess She must be too young to appreciate the “special-ness” of a family dinner at the table. We’ll have to work on that.

I will be posting my results of Charmin’s Challenge after dinner tonight. I procrastinated it as long as I possibly could Not really on purpose, it just happened that way.

Hamburger…

That’s Chloe’s new word. She’s 17 months old and the other day she came out with hamburger…well, it sounds sort of british…Hambugah…but there’s no mistaken what she said. Now she says it all the time. Are 17 month olds supposed to say 3 syllable words that well? She also has a very good version of calculator. You probably wouldn’t recognize it but it’s coming along. I’ll try not to push her though, she’ s only little Children are amazing. Why didn’t anyone tell me it was this fun?

I miss Blomidon. If you are not from here and you’re reading this post, Blomidon is the most beautiful place on earth. It really is. There is some amazing thing about this beach and it’s jagged cliffs that makes you want to stand up and Praise the Lord I say ‘awesome’ alot but this really is…it’s one of God’s great ideas. Isn’t it cool that the Lord wanted to give us beautiful things to look at while we are here? Now I can’t wait for Spring and the first trip to blomidon that will be a little colder than I’d like it to be but we’ll go anyway just because we missed it so much. And by we I mean me and Erin…because she would SO be in on that first trip. Except she is having a baby around that time (horray!). She’ll prolly come anyway, 9 months pregnant and all! Anyone else want to come? Why wait for spring? It’s beautiful there in the winter too. Although it’s probably dangerous and slippery.

This summer Chloe will be old enough to run on the sand when the tide is out and get really, really muddy Hurry up summer!!

Book Review Friday - 1 Timothy

I have to be honest. This was the toughest one so far for me. The previous 2 weeks that I have been reading have seemed easy and I had plenty of lightbulb moments and felt sure of what God was trying to show me. I couldn’t wait to write my reviews. This week I didn’t feel the same at all. I’d like to thank Charmin for being honest last week when she was having a little trouble with Ruth becuase I think I might have tried to make something up this week in fear of being the only one who didn’t get anything out of it So, I feel like it’s ok for me to tell you that I came up with way more questions than answers with 1 Timothy.

One verse stood out to me in particular. Chapter 2:10 For women who claim to be devoted to God should make themselves attractive by the good things they do. I have issues with vanity sometimes…what woman doesn’t? Something for me to think about as there are many times I wish I had more clothes, better hair, new makeup, etc. I really should be focusing way more on what I am doing so people who don’t know me (and of course those who do know me) can see that God is at work in me so I present Him and His love and not me and what I look like.

Well, one verse is better than nothing. Maybe I didn’t give this book the concentration it required this week. That could be the case. Logically, I know that it’s filled with things I could have learned. Maybe I’ll have to give this book another try sometime.

I’m off to read other reviews and maybe some of my questions will be answered by you

What I said and what I actually meant…

Last night I went to Bible study/prayer meeting at church. Afterwards, there is always juice and a yummy treat in the awana room. As me and Erin and her hubby were walking towards the awana room, I made the unfortunate statement, “I come for the juice.” What I meant was, I come into the awana room for the juice, NOT that I come to Bible study for the juice Of course, my good buddy Erin gave me a hard time and warned me to watch out for my lightning bolt on my way home. She said she was going to blog about this so I thought I would beat her to it. So, if she blogs about how un-spiritual I was at prayer meeting last night, you can know that I was just excited to have some juice after a nice time of Bible study and prayer. I will not take this opportunity to point out any lightning bolts that she could recieve because I am not like that. Tee hee…good times my friend!

I just finished eating a potato salad and chicken sandwich. Is that a wierd combo? It was very delicious.

Blogger is annoying me…whatever…I think my “update” is posted a few times and I can’t seem to delete it. grrrr…

Update

Ok, so her email wasn’t scary at all. In fact it gave me a great starting point so I could outline the gospel for her. She said, “Yeah I’ve been afraid to die since my dad died (1976), I use to cry myself to sleep and have nightmares. I can’t think about it or I won’t be able to function. I’m afraid that after we die, that’s it. I hope not but it is an unknown.”

So I got to tell her that it’s not an unknown! I remembered to pray before I started typing the email. I think that means I had some help I wrote about a paragraph explaining why it’s not an unknown and what we need to know and do to have eternal life. It’s sorta hard to be brief as to not scare her off but to make sure I said everything necessary in case she never brings it up again. Anyway, I haven’t heard back from her since I wrote that email. She also said she might drop by this week. I hope she does…only that’s WAY harder because I might have to explain it in person! Please pray for her. Thanks.

In other news, I taught Chloe how to “spike” her purple ball….gotta raise a vball player you know… And then I caught her spiking the cat. Smudgie was not impressed. We learned that you don’t spike cats, just the ball. She says, “Pike!” as she hits the ball…or the cat. Very cute

Also, I feel like I should confess, I had apple pie and hershey kisses for supper. Oh don’t worry, I cooked for my family, I just didn’t feel like eating anymore meat. I made a slow cooker roast beef yesterday and maybe I ate about half a pound of leftover meat at lunch time. Gross! What was I thinking? Good thing Mike took some to work with him because I might have been inclined to eat more! Ew.

Last night I sent out one of those funny little email surveys that most of us have done about 100 times since we got email addresses. They’re fun, I like them. The person I got the survey from last night is a friend of mine that I have been playing softball with since I was about 18. She is really nice and we get along really well. I know that she is not a Christian.

One of the survey question was “what are you most afraid of?” Her answer was, “dying” so I boldly (bold for me) emailed her and asked her why she was afraid of dying. Then I told her that I used to be afraid of dying too but I am no longer afraid since I became a christian. She has emailed me back. I see it there in my inbox but I am too scared to open it. When I saw it there, my heart skipped a beat and I couldn’t do it. What am I afraid of? Why is it so scary for me to do things like that? I certainly don’t witness often enough and it’s because of fear.

When I sit down and think about it (or blog about it) then I know that I am just being silly, that in the scope of eternity, it does not matter what she thinks of me…it matters what HE thinks of me. But I am still scared. What could be the worst thing she could say? She could tell me to never talk to her again but I doubt it. She could ask me some really hard questions…maybe that’s what scares me. I want to be able to back up what I say to people. Hmmmm, I’m getting a realization here that I don’t know the Bible like I should. Well duh, Jenn. One has to read the Bible in order to know it - Gosh! I am changing that and BRF is helping alot.

Maybe she’ll laugh at me. I don’t like being made fun of. So what happens if she does that? Nothing. I still have my family, my friends (who laugh at me but for a different reason), and just maybe God will think I did a brave thing and maybe He’ll be glad that I tried. Oh and just maybe He’ll expect me to do that more often. Yikes! Ok, I’m going to go open the email now.

I’m feeling rather productive this morning. Chloe is napping and I have managed to have a shower, do some laundry, get supper in the slow cooker and finally got yesterday’s dishes done… and it’s not even noon yet whatever will I do with the afternoon? I wish it wasn’t so cold, walking is not fun when your jeans freeze to your legs. Chloe doesn’t seem to mind it all snuggled in her snowsuit in the stroller.

I heard this morning that my friend Jacinda’s husband Lucas was in a car accident. We haven’t heard much yet other than he has a broken arm and a collapsed lung but hopefully that’s the worst of it. Most people recover well from those injuries. So, if you are the praying type, say one for Lucas, and for Jacinda because apparently they haven’t let her see him yet. She must be out of her mind. I would be. There have been many days when Mike is running late that I have imagined what I would do in getting one of those dreaded phone calls (yes, i am the dismal type who likes to prepare myself for the worst, I don’t mean to do it, it just sort of happens). I pray I don’t have to experience one of those calls. God has been good in keeping Mike safe on his 45 minute commute these five years he’s been working in Windsor and everywhere else we travel. Car accidents are scary, I know, I was in a bad one when I was sixteen and have scars to show for it.

A whirl-wind weekend

I’m not even sure I spelled that correctly. My eyelids are sorta droopy and I hope I can put some words together here. Can I just tell you that picking things out for a house is hard! I know there are lots of people who would like to have my problem and lots of people that are good at that sort of thing but, alas, I am not. If you’ve never been to my blog before I’ll give you the short story…we are building a new house. There, you’re caught up. Today my husband and I left the munchkin with my mom and headed to the home improvement store that he works at to pick out…well… pick out everything. Who knew that the door handles of the bedrooms had to match the inside handle of the front door? Who knew there were so many handles to choose from? Did you know that there are about 5000 (ok, maybe not that many) styles of kitchen cupboards you can choose and an equal amount of hardware for them? Oh my stars. This is stress for me. My problem is I’m too worried that I’ll pick something I think looks good only to have someone tell me it doesn’t match or the colors contrast…I don’t even want to think about flooring and wall colors. This is major decision making people, and I am not good at it. This is where I wish we were bazillionaires and we could hire a decorator. Yeah, that’s the way to go.

I’ve got some very creative friends that are reading this blog right now (you know who you are). Please feel free to suggest things for me.

Siding colors…
Shingles…
Light fixtures…
Bathroom stuff..

I’m overwhelmed.

Anyway, I’ll get over it. Have I mentioned how greatful I am to have a husband that is practically going to build a house himself? (ok not really but he will be working on it alot) Hey Charmin, I just had a great idea! Your kids can have shop class with Mike on ‘the jobsite’- as he likes to refer to it- what fun that would be! I better ask him first before I go arranging carpentry tutorials for the neighborhood children