Words

I love learning new words and the more I read, the more words I learn. Another blogger I thoroughly enjoy, also loves words and often will post her own collection on her blog If she doesn't mind my copying her, I also thought it would be fun to post a new word I have learned in my own reading.

I have recently begun the process of reading Jane Austen's books. I used to never be able to get through Pride and Prejudice, but after watching the movie and beginning to understand the Regency era, I cannot get enough of her! A good friend of mine let me borrow Jane Austen's last book, Sanditon. I'm about half way through it and I love it. As I read this, there have been a few times where I need to stop and look up a word. The most recent one is used here:

"He was convinced that the advantage if a medical man at hand would very matierally promote the rise and prosperity of the place [Sanditon], would in fact tend to bring a prodigious influx; nothing else was wanting."

Prodigious- from dictionary
–adjective

1.	extraordinary in size, amount, extent, degree, force, etc.: a prodigious research grant.

2.	wonderful or marvelous: a prodigious feat.

I'm ready for Spring

I don't know about you guys, but I'm ready for spring. As much as I do enjoy the cooler weather, I absolutely HATE the wind that comes with it. When the wind picks up here, my allergies get so bad and my skin dries out. I'm also ready to break out my cute skirts and spring-y outfits. I'm ready for warmer weather.

Things haven't changed much in our home. My husband is still out looking for work. There was a moment where something sounded promising, but it never panned out. Well, at least it seems that way. If God has that job in mind for Eric, it will happen. I have to admit, I am losing patience. Not with Eric, mind you, but with the whole process. With the whole country in a major recession, it just does not seem likely that Eric will find a job any time soon. I do get discouraged at times, but I just need to focus that God is greater than this and something bigger than we could ever imagine will come our way.

My job is okay. It's definitely not what I want to do at all and I often find myself getting discouraged at my situation, but I still remind myself that is a million times better than my old job and that my paycheck is really helping pay the bills. My only source of hope is that once Eric is in a steady job, I can quit this job and stay home. Finally! Looking back, I realized that I could have always stayed home. We are living on so little and and can still pay our bills and eat. I don't know why we never realized that to begin with!

As far as my baking adventures go, Eric and I and a friend of mine tried our hand at scones and lemon curd the other day. Eric worked on the lemon curd while my new found friend and I worked on the scones. They were so delicious! We will definitely be making those again. It's so fun to be able to be hospitable without spending a ton of money.

Well, that's it for now I guess. I will leave you guys with a cute picture of my snuggle bug, Stella.

A closeup of her sweet face!

25 Random Things

I posted this on my facebook account, so I thought I would just copy it here. I didn't think it would be hard to think of 25 things about me, but it took me quite some time.


1. I'm really not interesting enough to have 25 random things about me.

2. I'm pretty allergic to cats but I have two of them anyway.

3. Purple used to be my favorite color, but now my favorite is red.

4. I have lived in the same town my whole life.

5. The farthest I have moved from my childhood home is less than 10 miles.

6. I hope to change that someday.

7. I want to be fluent in French before I die.

8. So I can visit France and talk to the locals.

9. I love Styx and The Carpenters and I don't care who knows it.

10. According to my cousin, I "own" Sabotage by the Beastie Boys on Rock Band.

11. I met my husband on the internet.

12. I love Diet Coke and drink it all the time. Because of that, Eric calls it "Diet Crack".

13. I have a freakish obsession with Disneyland and can often spout off random facts about the park.

14. I often think about going back to college, but then I get an anxiety attack, break out in hives and get sick to my stomach. It's safe to say, I won't be going back to school anytime soon.

15. I'm really struggling with finding 25 facts about me.

16. I am the youngest of 3. There are 13 years between me and my eldest brother and 9 years between me and my middle brother.

17. I was a "surprise".

18. I have an irrational hatred of Nicholas Cage and I refuse to watch any movie with him in it because he annoys me so much, I want to punch him in the face.

19. I once spent 12 hours in one spot, just so I can see Johnny Depp in person. I saw his head. My life is complete.

20. My absolute favorite movie is The Princess Bride, followed closely by Singin' in the Rain.

21. I named my cat Stella just so I can yell "STELLAAAAAAAA"

22. I didn't enjoy the book Pride and Prejudice until I saw the movie (the 1995 BBC version). Now it's one of my all time favorite books.

23. I tend to jump on book bandwagons late on purpose, just so I don't have to wait so long in between book releases. For instance, I didn't start reading Harry Potter until the 7th book was just about out and I just started reading the Twilight series.

24. I am a severe procrastinator and always have been. I crank out my best work when the pressure is on.

25. I am an awful test taker. I can know the information inside and out, but once a test is in front of me, I completely blank out and panic. Which is probably why I freak out when thinking about school.

Schedules and Lists

As I have said before, I am not a list maker by nature. I usually go with the flow or fly by the seat of my pants. Needless to say, I drive my very structured husband crazy.

One of my New Year's goals was to really sit down and work on a schedule in order to create some peace in our household. It's not uncommon to see us running frantic around our house before we go somewhere, due to my lack of planning. I know my husband needs a good plan, and it's my goal to come up with a workable one!

So far, I have created a weekly list. This includes my work schedule, weekly Bible studies and Eric's sound schedule at church. I also keep spaces open for any events (birthdays, parties, potlucks) that come up. I include a space on each day of the week to write what I need to bring to an event. For instance, I have a lunch after my Bible study tomorrow and I have signed up to bring a pasta salad. I put that in there so I know in advance I need to add the ingredients to the pasta salad to my grocery list.

I also have a monthly calender where I just write a brief note on each day. Then I can look to my weekly schedule for a more detailed plan of what's going on. This way I have an overview of what's going on in the month.

At this time, I'm still working on a daily schedule. Every day is different for me, so I am trying to figure out the timing of things. So far I've got that I wake up around 5:30 every morning and I go to bed around 9:30 every evening. I'm still working on the stuff in the middle.

On top of my daily, weekly and monthly schedule, I'm also working on a cleaning schedule. I'm trying to break my cleaning into smaller jobs that I can do a little every night, instead of all day on a Saturday. I'm hoping to get this done by next week.

So there you have it. This is my first jump into an organized life. I'm hoping that this all becomes second nature.

Menu Plan Monday and Catching Up

Holy Toledo, has it been nearly a week since I last posted? I had so many blog post ideas last week and I just never had the chance to get on the computer to post them. I was really looking forward to posting my Works for Me Wednesday post, but I was gone most of the day on Wednesday and never got around to it. I'm hoping I can post it this week. My schedule is not as full as it was last week.

Speaking of schedules, I've got a post I'm working on (hopefully it can be up today or tomorrow) about my schedules. I'm a person who needs a schedule to get things done, however, I'm not organized enough to work on a schedule. I've decided to take control of my disorganization and sit down once and for all in order to create some order in my home. I won't be too strict on myself as far as keeping a schedule, but if I can just have something in writing, it keeps me accountable. A good friend of mine e-mailed me her schedule and I'm looking at it to get ideas for my own. Except my schedule won't include feedings and diaper changings.

Till I get that post ready, here is my Menu plan for the week!

As usual, breakfasts and lunches are about the same every day, so I don't include them in my menu planning. Here are the dinners.

Monday night- Out (yay!)

Tuesday night- Chicken stir fry and brown rice

Wednesday night- crock pot chicken, veggies, rolls

Thursday night- Leftovers

Friday night- Beef fillets (I found a couple in our deep freeze!) rice pilaf, broccoli

Saturday night- Spaghetti and Italian Bread

Sunday night- Leftovers

Menu Plan Monday...errrr, Tuesday!

I really meant to do this yesterday, but I just didn't have the time. I usually have some down time at work, and that's when I catch up on my e-mails, blog reading and blog writing, (with full permission from my boss, of course) however, I had absolutely no down time yesterday, so I never got around to putting my menu on my blog, which is why I had to wait till now! Since were on a limited budget, these meals aren't exactly gourmet, but hey, at least we can eat and I'm making it with stuff we already have on hand.

Breakfasts are usually a mix of oatmeal and fruit, toast with peanut butter and some fruit, or cereal. Once and awhile, Eric makes a couple eggs for me. Lunch for me is a sandwich, fruit and some corn chips. Or sometimes some leftovers from dinner the night before. Simple, easy, cheap!

Monday- Eric is on his own (he leaves for a class before I get home from work) and I get spoiled by my parents, since they take me out!

Tuesday- Spaghetti and meat sauce, salad

Wednesday- Beef enchiladas, salad

Thursday- Taco soup

Friday- Leftovers

Saturday- ? (We are helping friends move, so I'm not sure if we will do something light, like sandwiches, or if we will eat with them)

Sunday- Mac and Cheese, chicken tenders (we have people over Sunday nights, so dinner is quick)

So that's it for the week. There's nothing fancy, but the enchiladas are soooo good. I will have to post the recipe on Wednesday or Thursday, after I make them. It's a great meal for a group and it's also nice for us because it gives us some leftovers for the next day.

I'm also hoping to get another blog up this afternoon, if I have some downtime. I have some ideas running through my head, so if I don't forget any of them, I will make a post!

Saturday Snippets

"Saturday Afternoon" by Tim Coffee

It is a beautiful day today. It's a bit chilly (still not cold enough for me) and overcast and I'm just soaking it in. It's not often that we have days like this, here in sunny Southern California. It's also a beautiful day today because my husband is in the kitchen cleaning our ceiling fan blades. He's so good to me.

Well, my plan for getting up early bombed today. I feel slightly embarrassed to admit this, but we didn't get up till nearly 11. I don't remember the last time I slept in that late. To my credit though, my sinuses have been really acting up and I haven't been feeling well the past couple of days, so my body was probably needing the rest. I will be getting up extra early tomorrow to make up for it though, since Eric has to be at church at 6:30 in the morning. That's what he gets for being a sound tech. When he gets up at four dark thirty in the morning, I get up with him and make his coffee and breakfast while he's getting ready. He likes to have a big breakfast to hold him over till church is done by 2 in the afternoon (we have three services, so he's there for a loooong time). Yeah, it's early and I don't have to get up with him, but he really appreciates it and I like doing it for him.

Once we got up this morning, Eric made some coffee and I warmed up some of the banana bread I made yesterday, then it was time to tackle the house cleaning. I put away our Christmas decorations yesterday, but we didn't take the tree down because Eric's back was bugging him and we have a pretty big tree. Usually we dread taking the tree down, not only because it's sad (I LOVE my Christmas tree) but because it's so big and bulky, we don't know what to do with it once we take it apart. This year, my brilliant husband (he has good ideas once and awhile) thought of a new way to pack up our tree. You'll have to wait till Wednesday, because I will be making this a
Works for me Wednesday post. I've never done one before, so I'm excited. It's the little things that makes me happy.

Well, I've been on here too long and I still have some dusting to do and a couch to vacuum, so I better skedaddle. I hope you guys have had a beautiful day too.

Where has the time gone?

I can't believe the new year is here already. I realize, as I get older, every year flies by quicker than the last. I remember a time when it would seem like for.ev.er for Christmas to get here. Now it just seems like I blink and Christmas is over and it's time to put my Christmas stuff away.

Every year, around this time, I just randomly think of things that I want to see happen in the new year, and every year without fail, I never see any of it happen. This year I want it to be different. Instead of randomly selecting things I want to see happen, I decided to pray about it first. I thought that since God knows what it best for my life, I should seek Him first and see if He brings anything to my mind that I should work on. Ask and ye shall receive, right? Well, I asked and I received!

One of the things that came up was the use of my time. I tend to fill up my time with things that can be good, but also take away from more important things. Things like cleaning my house, reading my Bible or spending quality time with my husband. For instance, blogging can be one of these things. As other bloggers have noted in the past, blogs can be great. I can glean information in things like cooking, home organization and even great spiritual insights. The bad things about blogs, however, is that they are a real time sucker. It's amazing how time flies when I get online and start reading some of my favorite blogs. I just need to scale back on my reading time and make sure my home life doesn't suffer because of it.

Another thing that came to my mind was that I do need to spend more quality time with Eric. We both (more often, it's me) get so busy with other things that nearly a whole day goes by and we rarely said two words to eachother. I want to end that crazy cycle and begin to just turn distractions off and sit and talk, play games or hang out with Eric.

A great way that I can spend time with him, and something else that God brought to me, was that we really needed to spend some time in family worship. Eric and I have batted the idea back and forth for a couple of months now, but this is something that's stirring more in my heart now. I'm not sure how that is going to look for us at this time, but Eric and I are planning spending time together, each evening, praying, worshiping and spending time in the Word. We may even listen to a sermon once and awhile. All I know is that it is imparitive to our spiritual growth and our marriage that we spend more time in God's word as a unit.

I also realized that I needed to have a more structured quiet time. I know that a quiet time is not demanded of us as Christians, but I do know that I do better if I have read the Bible and spend some time in prayer. It's amazing how just spending 15 to 30 minutes each morning can really effect my day. So in saying this, I am planning on getting up early each morning so that I can spend some quality time with God. I've had sporadic quiet times my whole life, but I am now wanting something steady. None of this once every couple of weeks thing.

Since I am wanting to get up early each morning, I will need to get to bed earlier in the evening. I know this is easier said than done, but this is something that I really need to work on. Not only because I will be waking up a little earlier, but simply because I just need the sleep. I am hoping to get to bed no later than 10, but even earlier would be great, if possible.

The last thing that God brought to my mind is the biggie for me. It may seem small to others, but for me, it's something I really do struggle with. Organization and structure in my daily life. I am not a structured person. I know I have mentioned orginazation in the past, but I haven't really grasped the concept yet. Sure my house is clean (most of the time), but you don't know what's crammed in my drawers and closets. Actually, I don't know what's crammed in my drawers and closets. The big problem with this is that I'm married to a man who thrives on orginazation, structure and lists and my way of life drives him crazy. Instead of making him an unorginazed slob like me, I realized that I needed to make some changes. I don't know how I'm going to do it, but I am going to work on some sort of schedule for us that will work for us. This is something else I will be praying for because I don't know the first thing about schedules. I am hoping to read some books on orginazation when I have the chance and hopefully I can learn some stuff.

The last thing I want to mention in this huge post of mine, is the verse that God has put in my heart to be my verse for the year. I am hoping to make a yearly tradition from now on, to have a piece of scripture that can define how I see the up and coming new season in my life. This year's verse is 2nd Chronicles 7:14:

"if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land."

I am praying that this year I can remember to pray and seek His face at all times. I know my sin is already forgiven, but I'm looking forward to see what "healing" God has in store for me.

Merry Christmas!!

I hope everyone has a wonderful and blessed Christmas day that is spent with close family and friends! Let us remember what Christmas is truly about.

Merry Christmas Eve!

I don't have much to post today, but I thought I would post a fun video by the Christian band, Reliant K. I'm not a huge Reliant K fan, but this video was just too cute.

Monday Menu Plan

Yay for Menu planning! I really got off the bandwagon of this for awhile, but I recently got back on it. It has helped us so much and I'm spending way less money at the grocery store, which for us right now, is a necessity. I know not many people care, but it's helping me get in the right direction as far as organization, so you're just going to have to get used to me doing this weekly.

Here is the plan for this week.

*As a note, breakfasts and lunches are all the same. Oatmeal or eggs for breakfast, and sandwiches for lunch*

Monday- Leftover salad and garlic bread (we had our Bible study over last night for a lasagna dinner and I was planning on having leftovers of lasagna, but alas, there was non left to be had)

Tuesday- Sloppy Joes (or, for the PC people, Untidy Josephs) and steamed veggies

Wednesday- Out

Thursday- Christmas ham dinner at my brother's

Friday- Mac and Cheese with chicken tenders

Saturday- Christmas lunch at dinner at the cousin's

Sunday- Taco soup


I didn't do the family favorites addition this time, since I'm not really making a family favorite. Maybe next time!

Catching Up

I'm such a horrible blogger. I think about posting something, but then I never get around to it. I am so envious of the other bloggers that have something great to write nearly every day, while I struggle to put out a single post. I don't know how many readers I have, but I don't want to lose any, simply because I don't post that often.

That being said, I think I going to try to make this more of a fun journal. I may post something serious, I will probably post about what's going on in my life and my ever evolving walk with God, but I will mostly post things I'm finding interesting at the moment. It may be something from another blog I read, it may be a fun You Tube video, or it may be some lyrics to a song that is speaking to me at the moment. I'm just thinking about this as a journal, so some day I can look back and see what I found entertaining or thought provoking at the moment.

That being said, this post will be about what happened this past week. "What happened?" You ask? Well, Let me just show you:



Oh my lucky stars! It's snow!! In the desert!!! Yes folks, it snowed in the desert. I woke up Wednesday morning at 6:30 and thought it looked whiter than normal outside, so I got out of bed and peeked through the blinds and there it was. In all it's wet and cold glory. SNOW!!!!!

I opened all the blinds in the house and just stared. I figured it would all be gone by 9am, so I was soaking it all in. I also went out and took tons of pictures, just to capture the magical moment.

Here are a few of them:

Down the street

Our backyard

Come rain, sleet or snow, USPS will always deliver

Earlier in the morning

Our front yard

By 11am, the snow was not slowing down. It was actually coming down more! Eric wanted to go drive in it, so I bundled up, grabbed a blanket and off we went. The main roads were pretty bad. Desert people just don't know how to deal with snow, so Eric went down some side streets. He had fun testing out our TCS and anti lock breaks on our car. After about an hour, we went home to go sit by the fire. By 2 in the afternoon, it was STILL snowing, so we decided to go to my aunt and uncles house to watch the snow from their picture windows. It took twice as long to get there, but we made it and my dad took some pictures of us by the snowman my cousins made earlier that day.

Close up!

When we got home that evening, we couldn't even pull all the way in the driveway, because there was too much snow. I couldn't believe it. This is the most snow I have seen. Ever. By the time we went to bed that evening, we had 10 inches of snow, and it was still coming down.

Our car stuck in the driveway

Our poor tree. Three branches broke off

The front of our house from across the street

The snow lined up with the sidewalk10 inches!!

The last of the snow melted today, but I will never forget the fun we had last Wednesday. I'm still hoping and praying we can have another day like it soon!

Thank Yous

Since Eric and I have been abundantly blessed by others, I've been busy making thank you cards to show my appreciation to those who have been doing the blessing! Here are a few that I made today.

Big Bear Pictures!

Our family has a yearly tradition that dates back to when I when I was in high school and before all the kids were born (except for Katie and Maggie). Every Thanksgiving weekend, the cousins trek up the mountain to spend the weekend at a cabin in Big Bear. I wasn't allowed until I was out of high school, but ever since then, it's been a tradition I always look forward to. We've been to three different cabins in the past, but the current one we stay at is our all time favorite. It has 4 bedrooms and two good sized living spaces. It fits perfectly with our growing bunch.

Below are some photos from this past weekend. I miss it already!

"Serious" Eric, on the way up the mountain


The view once we got up there






Here is our home away from home, Coulter Lodge.



A trip to the cabin isn't complete without playing a bunch of games.

Uno

I'm almost out!!

Poker is a must during Big Bear weekend

I'm preparing to deal

My brothers, Dave (who is camera shy) and Jon

My cousin, Tom, is the big winner!

Whatcha drinkin' Dave?
Amanda takes in the action
Karen's Big Bear tradition is to work on her scrap booking

Usually after spending lots of time sitting and watching movies, or playing games, we like to go out and get some fresh air by taking a walk.

My niece and nephew, Mia and Nick

My nephews, Justin and Joshua
Joshua is all bundled up! Good grief is he ever cute!

Me and the hubster. Sorry it's so blurry!
This one is a bit too dark, but at least it isn't blurry! We are in the same spot as above too.
Jon and Amanda
Dave and Karen
A random shot of the roaring fire we always had going

I can't believe Big Bear weekend has already come and gone. We always have so much fun and I'm already looking forward to next year!