Terrific Tuesday – 5/20/2013

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TerrificTuesday

I don’t know anyone who is watching the videos of the aftermath of the tornadoes and not holding their families a bit closer today.  Lord, please be with the families who have lost loved ones, or a home or both.  Father, be with them today and let them feel your comfort and love. Give those who can go there and help extra strength and bless them.  Help those of us who can’t go there to find ways to make a difference – maybe it’s to give to the Red Cross or some other chartity that is probably already there making a difference!

Once again I am writing a Terrific Tuesday post after a tragedy.  And, once again, I am determined to keep doing it.  Terrific Tuesday is a weekly chance to share what you is making you smile.  Maybe it’s a person…a product…an ideal.  Whatever it is, it is a chance to be a smile on the internet!  We have enough sadness, let’s post some blessings! To participate, all you need to do is write a post on your blog, come back here and link up your post so others can see what you think is Terrific on Tuesday! 😀  And, please tell your friends so they can join us!

I’ve been saving a few things – little things that have made me smile!

First, not so little, we are done with homeschooling until August! Woot!  Here is J2 at our celebratory lunch!

endofyearcelebrationTrust me, he is happy, but he is a teenager! 😉

I also found a couple of products that I love!  First, my son, J3 found this one:

blush

 

It is a Glade Refill in their Blush collection called “Pink Diamond”.  It is so nice that (since he is gone to Science Camp) I have ‘borrowed’ it to put in my office! Yummy! Makes me wonder if it’s a perfume I can buy (I’m so NOT a fashionista!).  The label tells me the scent is Plumeria and Sweet Honeysuckle.  LOVE IT!

And, when I was shopping with my sister, we saw this nail polish (you can tell I took this picture as it’s oh so slightly fuzzy – sorry about that!) called Fuzzy Coat from Sally Hansen.

fuzzycoatnailAs you can see from the pictures, it is a nail polish with textures in it. But what makes it so fun is that the names are all knitting related.  The one above is all All Yarned Up and others in the series are Tweedy, Wool Knot, Wool Lite and more! Check it out!

So, what about you?  Don’t make this too hard. You can write a book about your blessings or just share a photo or a quick note about what made you smile this week. No rules! ok…one rule. Please link to the actual post and not just to your blog.

If you have ANY questions about any of this – please don’t hesitate to contact me!

Hope you smile today!!

 

A bit of this, a dash of that

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Today, it’s catch-up day on the blog….all those things I’ve been meaning to share but they aren’t enough for a full blog post:

  • Today Netflix released a new iPod/iPhone app to allow you to watch movies/tv shows from your instant queue! Love this! I almost can’t wait for the next time the boys take over the television! I’ll go find a comfy chair – maybe backyard on my swing? – and watch a bit of my old favorites!
  • Sweater Design Class.  Tonight is class #2 and I think I’m ready to set aside the sleeves but I’m a bit confused how to do that and what to do with the rest of the stitches so I’m definitely looking forward to this class! I hope to take some pictures tonight to share here – stay tuned!
  • Linde Lane Tea Room – I’m so blessed! Tomorrow, Ruth, Margaret & I are headed back for visit #2 and then, next week, I’m headed there with a friend who works with Hubs!  Yeah for me!!
  • I realized it wouldn’t hurt to bring a little organization to Sissy’s day.  So I did a quick search and was super happy to find http://www.letteroftheweek.com/ is still around.  This is a free curriculum for preschoolers that I used for J1 & J2 and loved.  (I wasn’t in a good place to do anything like this with J3 – poor J3, and me!)  Check it out if you too want some structure for your preschooler!
  • We now have all our curriculum for J2’s school year!  We are plugging away.  I am SO happy to have some help each week!  I hope when we have his IEP to ask for a bit more, some speech therapy for his Auditory Processing and possibly to have him retested.
  • We also finally have a weekly therapist for J2.  I hope she will help him recognize emotions in himself and others to help him in his interactions.
  • Jennifer S. shared about the Home Ec class she is using with her kids on her blog, For Such a Time As This, and it’s free! Definitely going to use this with my boys.  It’s written for girls, but I think it will work for them with just a bit of tweaking!  Check it out here:  http://www.futurechristianhomemakers.com/FCHLessonsIndex.html
  • Working out first thing in the morning is working great so far.  By the time I wake up enough to think I don’t want to do this, I’ve already been there for 25 min so I might as well finish! 😉
  • Downside is that it is really cutting into my work schedule.  So I’ll be working on that next.
  • J1 starts school in just about 1.5 weeks but we found out his teacher is still on maternity leave. :(  Please pray along with us that the substitute will be a good match for J1 and our family!
  • I’m attending a free webinar next week “Ten Stumbling Blocks to Writing” . I’m really looking forward to it.  Check out the link – there are other great webinars available for you!  Definitely an encouragement!

Guess that’s it!  Hope you enjoyed some of these links!

Random Catch-up Time

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Thanks to twitters at least I can’t say I’ve completely abandoned blogging.  But I feel like it’s been close.  I’ve just been too busy to really sit and catch up like I want to every day!  But I hope a few of you are still reading – cause here’s a real live update! 🙂

  • I wrote an article for The Old Schoolhouse Magazine’s Summer 2010 issue.  It’s on pages 52-54 and it’s called “Making a plan and letting it go”.  I hope you can read it and let me know what you think!!
  • I’ve decided to paint my kitchen red and yellow….and then I changed my mind! LOL  Now it’s just going to be red and white.  The yellow would be nice, but my kitchen is too busy (some would call it messy lol) to have three colors I think.  See?
  • I went to Michael’s this week and picked up a few things to decorate my home:

A new centerpiece for the dining room table:

some flowers for the living room:

And, a simple garland for my hearth:

  • Also, we had a visit from a young man we knew while we were in Oregon.  His dad, Gregg, was Eric’s best friend.  Someone Eric could be completely comfortable and real with during our years of ministry.  Sadly, Gregg died a few years ago and we lost touch with his family as people do when their lives get busy – it’s so sad!  But last night’s visit with Allen was great! He was on leave from Ft Hood and traveling home to see his family before he leaves for Iraq.  We were so blessed to see what a great young man he has become!
  • In knitting news, I’ve been knitting socks.  I decided to create my own sock club with the sock yarn I’ve been stashing (HT: YarnHarlot)  Here are my socks so far:
  • June:
  • July(ish)
  • August

Well, it’s time (past really) to feed the kids and I’m trying to scrapbook our trip to IL & Mo so I’d better close!  Only 2 more weeks left to my summer!! Yikes!!

The Tree Job

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Today we didn’t go to church but instead we planned to steal a few minutes to do a few honey-do jobs.  But while Eric was out in the garage this morning, he heard some big creaking noises and a snap.  There was a big split in one of our two trees.  A few frantic calls to family members and we had a local treeman heading our way.

Here is the view from before…

008

And after….

tree job 024

Here are more pictures from Flickr – I think they might be backwards though…

Happy Anniversary and other stuff!

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Yesterday, Samantha and Greg (no blog – but here is their family business site) and their two children arrived for a weekend visit.  Sam was in our youth group in the Portland area … we’d lost track of her over the years but thanks to Facebook she found us! 🙂

I had plans to cook  a nice dinner but they arrived a bit early and I was more tired than I expected.  So we ordered a couple of pizzas and just enjoyed their company!  It was a great time!  The kids entertained themselves in the game room and we enjoyed the Delta Breezes out in our backyard.

Then we took them to my mom’s house to stay the night.  She is up in Millville on baby watch – we are 8 overdue to meet Master Watson – but who’s counting.

Today is our 22 year anniversary and with everything going on we didn’t have big plans.  Sam, Greg and the kids joined us for a big breakfast.  I told Eric the bacon was his gift! lol

They had to then travel to San Francisco area for a funeral and we continued to work on the house.  After a quick trip to Home Depot – where we picked up shelving and a remant rug – we declared the project done!  Yes, there is some fine tuning required, but really that’s all little things.

So we broke out the bubbly – Champagne for us, sparkling cider for the kids – and toasted the completion and our marriage!  It was nice.

And, now we are finishing the day with one of our favorite date nights – Chinese delivery and a James Bond DVD! 🙂

Feeling blessed!