Thankful Thursdays!

I'm Thankful...

1. That I passed my math assessment test
2. That the migraine I woke up with is gone
3. That it's raining right now, oh how I love the rain
4. That my husband bought me a card after I took my math assessment test
5. For Starbucks
6. For hats
7. For junk food
8. For comfy sweatshirts
9. For purple shoes
10. That I have 3 beautiful, wonderfully naughty children

Wordy Wednesday!

I love the word Accost. Mostly just because I love to say it. I've never used definition 3 and don't plan to in the near future, although I may have to look up what a procurer is.

ac·cost  
[uh-kawst, uh-kost]


–verb (used with object)

1. To confront boldly.
2. To approach, especially with a greeting, question, or remark.
3. (of prostitutes, procurers, etc.) to solicit for sexual purposes. 

I absolutely positively hate the word pic! Because picture is such a long word we need to shorten it! Come on people! 

Have a great day!

To Sum Up My Day

Long. Nervous. Melancholy. Contemplative. Frustrating. Small victory. Loving.

Thankful Thursdays!

I'm Thankful...

1. That we don't have June bugs (violent shudder) in Butte
2. My children all still sleeping
3. For children's Tylenol
4. For cereal
5. I'm saving money on my grocery bill
6. For pretty pens and pencils (I think I have an addiction problem to stationary supplies)
7. My back pain has been better
8. For God's provision in my life
9. For waffles
10. That tea helps sore throats

Despair

What happens when despair threatens to overtake every fiber of our being? When desperation mars our feelings and decisions, it infiltrates and spreads like a disease. It’s the disease of hopelessness. 

One of the definitions of disease is listed as:

Any harmful, depraved, or morbid condition, as of the mind or society.

You can guess how this fits in. Despair, hopelessness, desperation and all feelings like it are a morbid condition for us Christians. They prompt us to make bad and rash decisions. Decisions we wouldn’t have otherwise made if we had prayed, read our Bibles, and spent some quiet non-verbal time with God.

¹⁹but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, ²⁰who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you. ²¹By Him ye believe in God, who raised Him up from the dead and gave Him glory, that your faith and hope might be in God. (1 Peter 1:19-21)

That our faith and hope might be in God! There is never cause to feel desperate or hopeless if our faith and hope is rooted in our never changing, all powerful, loving God.

It is hard, I must admit, when the circumstances staring us down are grim. That’s when our minds need to immediately focus on God. We need to condition ourselves as Christians to have God be our foremost thought when anything good or bad happens.

How do we condition ourselves? It is like any other conditioning method. If we want to run a marathon we don’t simply enter ourselves and go there on race day with some Gatorade and expect to finish. It takes months and months of hard work and training to prepare for something that big.

In our walk with God, we need to condition and train by being in constant communication with Him. Praying, reading, and meditation are all essential. I find myself thinking I have everything under control. I run ahead of Him only to find I am out of shape and have to stop for a moment to catch my breath. That stop I took cost me precious time, time I could have spent in communion with Him. Instead I end up playing catch up, pouring my remorseful, sinful heart out to Him. It’s a setback that should have never happened. I took my eyes off the prize and had a false sense of confidence that I could do it on my own. We all know what happens when we attempt things on our own. I’ll leave you with this.

 ²⁴Know ye not that those who run in a race all run, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain it. ²⁵And every man that striveth for mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible.²⁶I therefore so run, but not with uncertainty; I so fight, but not as one that beateth the air. (1 Corinthians 9:24-26)

                 

                 

Wordy Wednesday!

I try to be educational here (insert laugh here). I love words, some more than others. Hopefully, you read my post about the power of our words. You could probably tell how much I value words. So I have decided that on every Wednesday I'm going to share a word I love and a word I hate. I will share why I love/hate those words. My reasoning probably won't make much sense, but at least you'll get a good laugh! Here goes!

I love the word Exasperate. It sounds cool and it's fun to say. It's also a really "smart" way to say you are irritated. I've never used the botany definition though. I might have to try that.

ex·as·per·ate  : 

–verb (used with object)

1.

to irritate or provoke to a high degree; annoy extremely: Hewas exasperated by the senseless delays.

2.

Archaic . to increase the intensity or violence of (disease,pain, feelings, etc.).

–adjective

3.

Botany . rough; covered with hard, projecting points, as a leaf.

I hate the word Facetious. It just sounds stupid and the word is kinda pointless. Why say something if I'm not supposed to take it seriously? Why not just say you're joking? It's pretty snobby to me.

fa·ce·tious  :

–adjective

1.

not meant to be taken seriously or literally: a facetious remark.

2.

amusing; humorous.

3.

lacking serious intent; concerned with somethingnonessential, amusing, or frivolous: a facetious person.

So there you have a word I love and a word I hate. I don't know what's up with my indents, but I couldn't fix it. I'm exasperated by the indentation issue. Ha Ha! 

Have a great day everyone!!

The 4th and Missing My Grandma

I'm going to start with this morning and work my way back.

Derek had to work early this morning (poor guy). His alarm went off at 6 am and I was so not feeling it. We didn't get to bed until midnight so we were both pretty tired (and sore, but I'll get to that when I go backward). I decided to get up with him. I figured if my husband can get up and go to work while he's exhausted to go provide for our family the least I could do was get up with him and be all zombie-ish. So that's what I did. I fully planned on going back to bed after he left (my kids are still asleep). I laid down guilt free and prepared for a nice comfortable sleep. That did not happen however. So I got up and decided to organize my house a little bit. My house is small. And cluttered. Because I'm starting school in August I need a work area for all my gadgets. My desk is in storage so I had to get creative. Grandma Kay has this old Singer sewing machine. It's one of the pedal ones, but is like a desk when the sewing part is down. I started to clean it out and found all of this stuff of Grandma Kay's. We haven't gone through it since she died. I found her wallet, her rosary (which is beautiful), a necklace, and all of this sewing paraphernalia. I started to cry my eyes out the second I found her stuff. I miss her so much. I've blogged about her quite a bit, but I have to reiterate how special she was. Best person I've ever had the pleasure to know. Man, I need her.

Anyway, I drug the desk/sewing machine into my room (it's WAY heavier than it looks but it had wheels!). I set all my stuff up and it looks good. I'm gonna hang pictures in my room later. The first thing I did after I got it set up? I blogged. I left the dirt on the floor from where the desk/sewing machine was, didn't clean my table up from where I cleaned it out, and left everything on my bed and floor from where I put stuff. I'll do it later I guess.

OK, so now for the 4th! I had a blast yesterday! The parade was so-so this year, but we got to watch it at a friend's house. She's so awesome. She has all this red hair and she's gorgeous. She is somebody you want in your corner let me tell ya. After the parade we went home and I put together my pasta salad and we drove over to some other friend's house. Steve and Angela are some of the coolest people. I just love them. They make me laugh. They set up this blow up slide thing in their yard and I thought my kids were going to have a coronary when they saw it. We ate and visited. There was a mean joke played on me. Zach and Steve both said Tom Brady was in a car accident and broke his leg. If you've been reading for any amount of time you probably know how big of a freak I am about football. The Patriots in particular. Tom Brady being the quarterback and overall just awesome it freaked me out. I promptly took my phone out and googled it. It was a lie. Zach said it was worth it to see the look of panic on my face. I will never believe another word Zach says. Then a game of whiffle ball was instigated. These people do not know how competitive I am. Being "church" friends, they haven't really seen me at my worse. Well now they have. I did alright, but I almost knocked down an 11 year old at 2nd base. I swear I didn't see her there, I was in the zone. We lost, but it was so much fun! In reference to when I said we're sore. I can't believe my legs! They feel like they weigh 100 pounds each. We went home around 5 and everybody took naps in preparation for the long night of explosions we had ahead of us. We only had one incident. A firework fell over and started shooting at us. Every time it shot it would spin. Derek went into the street to kick so it would shoot in another direction. It almost hit two cars and like 5 people. God was watching out for us. That was our 4th.

So the 3rd was a pretty good day. Church was great as it always is. The afternoon relaxing. Then we went up to Brian's house (Derek's brother) for a BBQ and to watch the fireworks off of the big M. The fireworks were very cool. My little pyro (Alexander) was trying to light stuff on fire with his sparklers. I'm gonna have to really watch that kid.

We've had a busy couple of days. I'm looking forward to getting back to "normal". I hope you all had a safe and happy 4th. Thanks for reading my random ramblings.