Whether it’s here or there…

Most of you know that we’ve been living in a rental house for over a year now.  I was just sure our house in SC (above photo…..oh, not the bird house, just a bird house in our front yard) would sell quickly and we’d be buying a home in FL in no time!  But, alas, I was wrong (not surprising).

After 10 years in SC it was difficult to leave the home we loved, the friendships we had formed and the homeschool group we were apart of.

Since moving to FL God has been so gracious to put many interesting people in our path.  I’ve met 3 Messianic Jews….I think that is super cool.   One was the man at the Oreck store today.  He came to know Christ after a major brain surgery in which he could have died had they not performed the surgery within hours.

Last weekend I met a woman on the beach who attends the same church we do, is teaching at Classical Conversations this year (I taught there last year), lives in the neighborhood beside us and is a professional photographer.  She homeschools her three children on top of all that!!  She was wonderful and I felt it was a God-ordained trip to the beach that day.

We’re anxiously awaiting a close date on our home.  Here she is!!

I LLOOVVEE, love, love the kitchen…

We feel it is such a gift from our Father!  We all absolutely love it and can not wait to move in.

As we anxiously await God’s timing for moving in I am keenly aware of the journey He has taken us on through the last year.

He’s used the time to help us select a section of this big city we live in.  And he’s provided so much for my youngest and oldest children.  Last year was a tough homeschool year.  One child was diagnosed with ADHD and I fought that tooth and nail.  I’ve read books, searched on the computer for answers and have been led by God through a friend to a wonder center Learning Rx.  The place is amazing.  They retrain the brain to be able to pay greater attention, retain and store what they’ve seen or learned, retrieve that information, process information more quickly and a tremendous amount of other things!  Check out their website.  We are concentrating on our learning there for the first part of the year and I am so looking forward to what God is going to do with my children through the center.  I feel I am setting them up for future success in life and attacking the real issues going on in their brains and not just the symptoms.

I have even found an app for the ITouch that I am going to use to exercise my muscle called “The Brain”.  Lumosity also offers an affordable solution if you are interested in exercising your brain online.  Take a look at their website too.

After posting a Community Question on Pioneer Woman’s website months ago I have taken an amazing journey to find what I believe is the next step in helping my children succeed in life.  The brain is an amazing muscle that needs exercising and even tho I still believe in right brain vs left brain thinking (to a degree) I’m learning more and more about developing cognitive skills and long and short term memory, auditory work memory, working memory, visual processing, logic and reasoning, processing speed, auditory processing and spelling of sounds.

God’s journey is never our own….even tho it is.  He just has a different way of bringing us around so we know that we know it’s Him and not us!!!


Vacation and Family

Here’s our newest toy…

It’s really marvelous.  You’ll have to visit and come for a ride with us.

After we left the beach after our family vacation my sister had the nerve to take pictures without me.  Here are a few of my favorites…

My mom snapped this one of my sister and her girls…

And here is one my sister snapped of my mom with her girls…

I really was jealous to have missed out on some girly pictures, but at least she sent me a disk.

Hope you have a great weekend.

Oh, and I was just kidding about that YACHT!!


Two totally unrelated subjects….

There are two things burning in my mind tonight.

1.  God is so good!  And He takes care of me in such magnificent ways.

The story behind this statment is a recent one.  Rocketman is in Omaha and has been for a week.  So my real estate agent and I took off to see just a couple houses on Sunday.  The kids were at home with a babysitter so I was on my own.  The first house we looked at was brick and a very nice space.  It was dated on the inside and would require updating over the course of time.  We’re not huge “fixer uppers”.  Rocketman is in the throws of a new job and I’m homeschooling 4 kids.  Plus it does not float either of our boats!!

On to the second house. Stucco…not my fav but a pretty house and a nice setting nonetheless.  I was taken the minute I stepped in the front door.  There were beautiful blues in the house, pretty shades of yellow, walls (a must with 4 kids), and 5 bedrooms.  The kitchen was stunning….black marble counter tops, a space for a large kitchen table (which I’ve always wanted), and maple cabinets (my favorite).  The homeowners were also leaving a fabulous washer and dryer and the refrigerator which I liked quite well!!  The icing on the cake was a jetted bathtub….my getaway when I can’t get away.  Everything that was in my heart was in the house.  I felt so peaceful as I looked around and decided to call my hubbie to see if we could make an offer.  We did.  Then the counter offer came in and we countered.  They came back with a price they were stuck on, but willing to leave something I wanted in the house.  I called my husband in Omaha and could not get him on the phone to save my life.  Usually after three phone calls in a row he thinks there is an emergency at home, but this time I received no return phone call.  The house had 4 showings the day we were doing all this countering back and forth.  So I felt pressed to make a quick decision.  We were not far off on money so I agreed.  Two more phone calls to my hubbie and no return call.  For almost 5 hours I had no contact with him.  I was about to bust!

But during that time God allowed me to soak in the warmth of His love and the fact that this house was His gift to me and my family.  The soak time, the inability to talk to my husband…God used it all to cement in my heart the fact that the house was from Him.  We’ve offered on other houses, had contracts going only to have them fall apart and each time I freaked out for at least two days.  This time?  No freaking out.  Only peace.  God’s peace.  God knew this was the only way I would be ok and trust Him with the jump from tiny town in SC to big city FL living.  He knows me so well.  And I am so thankful He does!!!  I feel loved and taken care of.

Subject #2

No matter what anyone says.  No matter the claims made on TV.  Cat boxes and cat litter STINKS.  There is nothing, absolutely nothing anyone has come up with to take away the funk of a litter box!

Of this I am totally convinced as I am with my new home…I know it’s from the Lord.

Concerning cat litter… IT STINKS.

(Told you they were unrelated.)  Goodnight!


Atlantic Beach – Part 2

Usually I come home from our family vacation having taken millions of pictures.  This year the wind was so strong each day that my sunglasses were unusable after 10 minutes, I couldn’t imagine taking my camera out.  There were a few days my sister and I got to snap pictures so here’s a sampling.

My beautiful “almost graduated” niece…

Another processing action (thanks Pioneer Woman!)

One of my favs…

Insert older sister…..such a ham…..

Unprocessed photos ( I got tired )…..

Oldest niece and boyfriend (we think he’s a keeper)

Funny fishing photo…

Insert master fisherman (Rocketman)…..

We caught a flounder in the surf one day when it was calm…

My gorgeous sister….

It’s a bird….

It’s a plane…..

It’s big sister!!!

Our family’s favorite traditions…”The Sunset Cruise”

Me and baby girl…

Another favorite from our photo shoot….

One of HER favorites…

The love birds…

My all time favorite from the photo shoot….

Another beauty…

She gets her groove on when someone else enters the photography….

“Hello big sister…..I’m wet!!!”

And the last one for tonight…..enter baby girl into the shoot….”ew…you are wet!”


When nothing makes sense…

I often wonder what to do when nothing makes sense.  Life doesn’t work.  Family is far from functioning in a healthy manner.

All I know to do as a parent does not work…

What do you do?

When your child won’t go to bed after 3 hours?…..

What do you do?

When you are exhausted, at the end of your rope and about to bust a blood vessel…

What do you do?

When you know God is working all things for your good yet none of it makes any sense….

What do you do?

When you know that you know that HE is GOD! Jehovah………

Yet, this earthly life and body feel so alien to you and the longing to be HOME without sin, without blemish, with the ONE who loves you most….

What do you do?

When none of the puzzle pieces fit…..

“Lord Jesus, what does this weary one do?”


Atlantic Beach, NC

Vacation.

What a wonderful break from life.  Here’s just a small sample of silly photos to come.

This is baby girl with her cousins.  Just a hoot aren’t they???


Just Yesterday!

It really was just yesterday she was born and I couldn’t figure out why she never wet her diaper!  After three boys I was accustomed to having diapers wet in the front, not the back.  It only took me three days to figure out that one.

But somehow I missed 7 whole years and was invited to a pool party last Saturday.

Where does the time go?  Who gives it wings.  Why are we in survival mode and then puberty?  No one told me about puberty!!!

From diapers and breast feeding to getting fashion advice from her…I am not sure where the time went.

But lo and behold, she is seven.  Soon it will be driving, then college.

I think my womb hurts!


Noelle

She looks so sweet….our new kitty.  When Cruiser, one of our cats from SC, decided to cruise on off we searched for months for him.  We missed him a lot and hoped God would bring him back to us.  That did not happen.  So we finally went in search for a new kitty.  I would have liked to have an older cat who is out of the kitten stage but that isn’t what we decided upon.  None of the older cats seemed to fit us and Noelle looked so cute.  As a girl, we were hoping she would get along with our 18+ pound Fred.

She’s quite the lounger.  She plays hard.  She sleeps hard.

It’s easy to get sucked in, laying on the floor next to her rubbing her as she purrs….

She will lay her paw on your nose or on your arm as if she is loving you right back….

And her sweet little tongue comes out as she relaxes beside you…

Then when she really has you sucked into her sweetness….

She turns into super wild, possessed kitty with the stinkiest poo this side of the Mason Dixon line.

Look at that facial expression…..even tho my focus is on her paws.  WILD CRAZY KITTY!

And just as she has done here….she sucked us in.  The child will climb walls, walk on plant shelves, sneak into places she just ought not be, and drink out of the toilet.

BAD KITTY!!

And then when I’m ready to strangle her, she turns into sweet kitty again.

Oh, the cycle of cat life!!


When we flounder

There is a time when we stumble.  We wander around in the darkness like lost children.

Day 1 – baby cardinal’s life

We lay naked, exposed, fearing the worst.

Day 2 – baby cardinal’s life

We fear what the world holds…that things might not pan out the way we want them to pan out.

Day 3 – baby cardinal’s life

Maybe we curl up underneath the covers scared to face the day.  Or maybe we poke our heads out just to see if it’s safe, only to withdraw again under the covers.

But we forget, we are held by a much larger hand.

Day 4 – baby cardinal’s life

One that lovingly picks us up each time we fall.  One that picks up our nest, our egg, and even our tiny bodies and places them all back where they belong… safely tucked underneath his wing, in his tree, under his leaves.

Day 5 – baby cardinal’s life

And it’s in that safety and security we begin to blossom into what he has planned for us.

We may look naked, feel naked.  We may feel ugly.  But He sees us as the beautiful being he has made to be… flying free from this world’s trappings.

We may not look like the beautiful cardinal we will one day become…full of beautiful color, melodious song and wings that fly safely above the earth below.

But we are getting there…

Under the watchful eye of the One who loves us the most.

Photos of the first 5 days of our baby cardinal’s life.  Nest rescued from a tree being cut down.  Bird, egg and nest picked up off the ground numerous times and placed back in a bush, all under the watchful eye of mama and papa cardinal.


One day at a time.

Since moving to Florida God has been teaching me how to live one day at a time.  LITERALLY.  There are no old hymn notes playing, no music, just a complete stripping of my peace should I leave today.

I feel there are many decisions to be made that all hinge on where we will be living at the beginning of this coming school year.  There are two things of which I am certain after renting in a gated community for 1 year.

The first is:  I do not like gated communities and I want land.  Living where my kids can not run and play has been horrible.

Second:  I will pay for walls.  I do not like open floor plans.

We’ve probably all heard the song, “One Day at a Time, Sweet Jesus”.   I live that song.  Decisions I want to make I can not.  So I continually reel myself back into today waiting for what our pastor calls Explosions of Grace in my life.  Tiny glimpses of God reminding me that he’s got all the stuff that feels like cobwebs in my brain.

The two weeks were were in SC passed as if it were 3 days.  Friends, Food, Yard Work, Dr Appts all kept us busy as beavers.

Now I’m home to taxes (still not done), the last of the school year, and planning for next school year.

It’s a little funny that we live in Fla and vacation in SC now!!!  I pray God has great plans for the house we love in SC.  And I pray for His blessing here to be more than I could ever imagine.


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