Eco-Friendly Giveaway Winner

And

The

Winner Is

Maura at Fostering Awareness

Congratulations!

Please email me (mindymwaters@yahoo.com)   your address and I will send  out your bottle of Eco-Store USA cleaner.

Thank you everyone for entering. Hopefully, I will be able to do more giveaways in the near future.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

I want to wish you and your families a Happy Thanksgiving.

There is so much to be thankful for.

Hopefully, you are not stressing about dinner, place settings, or clean houses.

I am enjoying Thanksgiving Dinner with Mr. & Mrs. N (Dan’s parents), Dan, Jacob, and Christian in Kentucky.

For all of those who are participating in the Black Friday shopping extravaganza, GOOD LUCK!

 

I hope you like bullet points

Disclaimer: If you do not like bullet points just stop reading now. Trust me you will thank me later.

Ok, I know I haven’t been regularly posting but I have reasons. My brain is on overload. Please bear with me.

• My first semester at college is coming to an end. This means that I am doing homework, reading, midterms, and papers in overload.
• On Wednesday afternoon Dan, Jacob, Christian, and myself will make the 7 hour drive to Kentucky. Dan’s parents live in Kentucky and we will be spending the Thanksgiving holiday with them.
• Tonight was Parent Teacher Conference's. Jacob’s teacher confirmed that Jacob lacks the skill to pay attention in class. (This we have already known – We think that Jacob has ADHD but we have not gotten him tested.) On a positive note, Jacob is doing really well in Math. It is his favorite subject. Jacob’s teacher also said that he needs to work on writing his letters and copying things from the board to a piece of paper.
• Jacob got into a bit of trouble at school on Friday and now he is grounded from playing video games for a week.
• My finances are causing me stress. I didn’t realize how difficult and how unprepared I was to start school. I really need a part – time job badly. At this very moment I don’t have any time to even look for a job. With Christmas coming up I am very worried on what I will be able to provide.
• I cracked my tooth in half and I am in a lot of pain. Because I have very very limited finances and no health/dental insurance I cannot get it fixed at this time.
• I haven’t forgotten about my Giveaway!. If you haven’t entered yet I will not be closing the posts until Saturday night. The winner will be posted sometime on Sunday. To enter go here and leave me a comment.
• Jacob is in a Thanksgiving school play tomorrow. If I can figure out how to upload a video I will. Otherwise, if my non computer technological mind cannot figure out how to upload a video I will definitely post pictures.

That is it for now. I will post and update more as I can. Tonight I have to read an entire book for my Humanities class.

Until then …. I hope everyone has a fantastic Thanksgiving holiday.

If you didn’t know this already ….

I am thankful for you!

Look at what I found!!!

I found this on the kitchen table. I love seeing Jacob’s handwriting butt (pun intended) this isn’t really what I wanted to see.

Is it normal for a 6 year old to have poop and butt in his writing vocabulary?

What funny things have your kids written?

For the Record

I love Sarah Palin. I have seen the Oprah interview and I am now watching the Nightline interview with Barbara Walters. I would have loved to witness what she could have done as the Vice President of the United States of America.

I just wonder what a working mother of five children could do. Seriously, she has a special needs child and a daughter who had a child as a teenager.

She is a regular woman who struggles with the same things many of us struggle with.

After these interviews I think I love her more!

Oh and also, she is a non-denominational Christian, just like me!

What do you think? Do you like Sarah Palin?

Why I love my church: Part 1

I do love my church. From the very first time I went to Harvest Bible Chapel, I knew this church was a good fit for me. (That is another post in itself!)

One reason I love my church is because everyone prays for each other!  They even have a prayer room in which you can read people’s prayer requests and pray specifically for them.

This past Sunday as I opened my Bible a card fell out. (To be honest, I forgot about this card all together.) As I scanned the handwritten words … I remembered! I remembered the day I got this letter. I remembered crying as I read the words. I remembered how truly loved I was.

Here is what the letter says ….

April 30, 2008

Dear Mindy,

Just wanted to send you a quick note & let you know I prayed for you today! Thanks so much for your honesty & candidness on the register – it was a blessing to know how I could specifically pray for you personally this week.

The scriptures are very clear to us that when we press on to know the Lord, He will answer this desire of our hearts. I love what Hosea 6:3 says - “God will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the Earth”. I am always reminded of this verse during this season especially & my prayer for you is that, as God renews your faith, He would refresh your heart by making Himself known to you each day as you continue on your journey with Him.

May you walk in His strength this week!

In Christ,

Laura Jennings 

Oh how much I love that letter! It made me cry again as I typed out the words. I was a blessing to her. She wanted for me more than what I wanted for myself. 

I LOVE MY CHURCH!!

Are you looking for a church home or have you found one already? If you have a church home why do you love it? If you don’t have a church home what are you looking for in a church?

Laziness is officially bubbling over in my house

I am so lazy right now! So lazy that I am angry with myself. I am not getting anything done.

Case in Point: Last night I made dinner and barely cleaned up the kitchen. Then I sat myself down on the couch and there I stayed until I went to bed. The clothes are over running my dining room table. The kitchen sink is exploding with dishes still to be cleaned. The carpet is literally begging me to vacuum it. Honestly, my house looks like I never clean up.

The laziness then lead to the most craptacular morning. (Yes in my vocabulary craptacular is a word!)

I woke up at 7:30 which is late. Then proceeded to take my time showering, putting my make up on, and getting dressed.

After I was ready and Jacob was still asleep I felt it was only appropriate to see if Jacob had any homework. Oh yes I could win the Mother of the Year award. Much to my surprise he totally had homework and it is due today.

SUPER!

So I wake Jacob up and then threaten his life if he doesn’t get in the shower immediately. I then inform him in my angry voice that he has to take the world’s quickest shower. The second he gets out of the shower I throw his clothes at him and yell once again to get dressed as fast as he can.

Oh yes I am Mother of the Year!

Then I have him sit at the table and I am force feeding him the answers to his worksheet as I am laying out the exact way he needs to glue together his cut up sentence.

I bribe him to write nicely by promising him $1 so that he can buy ice cream at lunch.

While he is gluing together his sentence I am packing his lunch.

He finishes his homework which he has officially learned nothing from since I answered all the questions.

Then I am yelling once again to have him get his coat and shoes on . The shoe laces are knotted together and he can’t do it.

At this time I now have my coffee cup, Jacob’s juice box, my coat, Jacob’s backpack, my backpack, and my purse. It is near to impossible to now unknot a shoe and then put it on Jacob’s foot. He is getting upset and I am continuing on my yelling rampage.

By the time we get into the car it feels like this day is going to drag on forever.

Now if I wasn’t so lazy … Jacob’s homework would have been done last night.

If I wasn’t so lazy … the clothes would be folded and put away.

If I wasn’t so lazy … my kitchen wouldn’t look like a disaster area.

Does anyone else struggle with laziness?

What kind of things do you do the night before so your mornings aren’t centered around yelling and bribing? Honestly, any tips, tricks, or motivations would be much appreciated!! Please leave some comments. I want to hear from you!

Thankful for the Simple Things in Life

This morning Dan and I got the two boys ready then headed off to church. I am so thankful that we went. Today was the unofficial ending of the series titled My Church: a work in progress. It was all singing and baptisms. They even had the kids in the church service with us to enjoy the service as well. The boys were not happy about not having children’s church but I was. Jacob ended up asking a million questions about baptism. He has seen pictures of his baby baptism. He concluded that he didn’t have to get baptized again. I told him that getting baptized as a young adult is different than being baptized as a baby. (Side Note: He was baptized in a Catholic church not because I wanted it but because his grandma and great grandma really wanted it. Thinking back now I would never have done it but I can’t go back and change it now.) I reminded Jacob that being baptized would be his choice. Once he accepts Jesus as his Lord and Savior and knows that he is a sinner made pure by Jesus he can be baptized again. He seems to be still too young to fully understand the magnitude. That is fine by me. He is too young and when it makes sense it will then be his time.

On a separate note I had a mini meltdown today that I am not proud of. Dan and I sat down to enjoy a movie and the kids were playing in Jacob’s room. The minute the movie started Dan felt it was necessary to have Christian sit down and do his reading homework. Needless to say, I lost it. I turned off the movie, threw the remote, set down my ice cream, and marched off to my room. (After typing it out I don’t know if it is really categorized as mini – meltdown. Full blown seems to be more accurate.) Sometimes I don’t understand why he does the things he does.

So I must admit …. I am a control freak!

I want things down my way all the time. I like to do everything myself because then 1) I know it will get done 2) It will get done the way I want it to and 3) I am afraid everything will fall apart if I don’t do it myself.

I used to think being independent was honorable, courageous, and smart but now I am thinking it isn’t. Now I am just thinking that it is stupid.

I know I can’t always have things my way. I also know that I push people away when I take control of too much. How can someone else fit in my life if I never need them for anything?

I have sadly enough been doing the same thing to God. I have pushed him out of my life thinking that I can do it all on my own. I know that is that is the wrong way to think.

I am not sure how to change how I behave. I know that I have to give over my control to God. I really want to do that. I know it isn’t going to be easy.

So tonight, as I am making dinner and still pouting (actually I am embarrassed by my childish behavior) from the blow out I about 2 hours ago I am throwing in the towel. I am waving the white flag and surrendering to God. I am giving Him it all. We all know He can take control of my life way better than I can.

And … I am thankful for finally submitting to him.

I am a sinner.

I fall short of the glory of God everyday!

I have been cleansed of all my sins.

God needs to have my all and then I can draw closer to Him.

Tonight I am thankful for all I have been given!