Beautiful Monday

today.  Wow, the sun is shining and it’s so pretty outside, I really shouldn’t be cooped up in this house today, but the house is quiet and  all my chores are done, and thought I would take this opportunity to get caught up on my blog and blogging.  I can’t  believe I haven’t posted since the beginning of the year….but it has taken me awhile to get settled in after the holidays and such.

As most of you know Michael and I spent the holidays on a cruise, and I promise to share some pictures with you…maybe I will get that done tomorrow…but since getting home, I have had to put all my decorations away.  That is one heck of a job.  Not sure why it takes me so much longer now than it use too, but it was a three day process and then the weekend came and we had to declutter and organize our garage to get the crates back on the shelves.  So glad that is done, and the garage is looking much better now.  You can ALMOST get a car in there again.  Hopefully soon we will be able too. 

Also since getting home we have had some deaths to deal with.  Last week we had three special people to us pass away.  Needless to say it has been a tough week.  Certainly hope we don’t have to go through that again anytime soon.  It is so hard to say goodbye to those we love but even harder for those left behind.  My prayers are with these women because they all lost their husbands.

I have also been trying to put myself on some kind of a schedule and working towards getting myself better organized.  Seems this is always a January chore for me.  Last year I diligently put together my Homemakers Journal,so that I could stay on top of all the things that I want to do. 

Below photo is of me sorting through folders, magazine, calendars, charts, etc.

Getting pages ready to put into my binders

Saving pictures for my ideas folder

Deciding which magazines to keep and grab ideas from

My little binder that can easily be dropped in my handbag to jot down ideas

Now the finished product….

All this to tell you after all that work, guess what?  It is in storage in a box far away from me and I can’t even use it.  UGH!  But I am sure once I can get my little hands on it in the future, I will be so ecstatic. 

I have also been trying to get myself back on track with studying the WORD!

So as you can see I have been busy since getting back home.  I am hoping to get better at my blogging.  I always feel so overwhelmed at the start of a new year.  I always have great plans to do better, but always get sidetracked.  I hope you will hang in there with me, as I have lots of things that I want to do now that I am no longer working.  I’m so excited and feel blessed to have this time to do all those things that I have wanted to do.

Hope you have a blessed day!

Hugs,
Cindy

Racing thoughts

Good Morning Ladies, just wanted to drop in here and do a little update, before I get to far along in my day. I am sitting here in a quiet house and the weather is simply gorgeous outside. The birds are singing and it is the first real tease of Spring. Oh was a wonderful gift it was this morning to be home and get to enjoy it. Today I am feeling on top of the world. Life is busy but oh so good. Praise God. He is so good to me.

As some of you know from reading my last post (reading Wedding Plans) the wheels are in motion. Michael and I have lots to do before the big day. I have been blessed with lots of friends back home and my mothers church that said they would do whatever needs to be done so that I don't have to worry about getting everything done long distance. What a true blessing this will be.

Michael and I are heading to Houston on the 29th of February for a couple of days and then on the way back we will stop in Russellville (fly into Nashville) to make some arrangements and speak with the florist, caterer, and pastor, as well as the cake decorator. So it will be busy why I am there. I will also take along a list of things for the women at the church that intend to help my mom. I never dreamed I could be this excited or happy again about a wedding, but God is putting everything in place. So I am simply trying to enjoy the journey. At this point because of work restrictions, we most likely will not do a honeymoon at this time, but later in the summer, we may try to take a cruise or vacation. This is fine with me because our main goal is to have this wedding before his mom can no longer travel. Bless her heart. Not only does she have our wedding to attend but two grandchildren that are graduating from college and she wants to attend thier graduations during this whole time frame. We feel that as long as she has things to look forward too, this may be the best medicine for her. She is a remarkable woman.

Today is going to be full of getting my house together and ready for a new full week of activity. I spent the morning cleaning my kitchen (again) and hitting all the hotspots in the family room. The house is picked up and cleaned and so I am going to work on a few of the things I had listed for my Household Managemet book. I am going to also download something that I found online yesterday. Which is going to be the site I am going to feature this week. (excert below taken from the site)

e-Sword is a fast and effective way to study the Bible. e-Sword is feature rich and user friendly with more capabilities than you would expect in a free software package. The fact that e-Sword is free is just one of the blessings and does not speak of the quality of the software. I make my living writing software and I believe I have put forth my best effort in this endeavor. The real work, however, was put in by the godly men and women who devoted countless years creating the texts that have been made available for our benefit.
In His service, Rick Meyers

So if you are interested in this download follow this link and find the download here.

Also one of thing I did accomplish this weekend was, I posted my cooking blog. It is no where near finished but you can find the link under personal sites in the left hand column. I hope you will drop by and leave me a little note.

K...ladies, as you can see, I got lots to do, so going to get at it. Thanks for all your well wishes. Hope you have a blessed day. Love you all.

Happy SONday!

Good Morning Ladies, hope this finds you all having a blessed day. This morning has been quite relaxing for me thus far. I have spent oodles of time this morning, moving things around on my blogs, and getting my homemaking site in order. When I posted it yesterday I had a two column version and that isn't what I wanted so I got it changed to a three column verstion this morning. I like it much better. Now I will have to spend time populating the content for it. I have several things to still add but it will take me some time.

I also have been spending time this morning updating my HMB. What a chore that was, but I feel much better having it done. I worked on my prayer journal section. And removed my grocery/menu/recipe sections because I have added them into my recipe binder. Which I have also been working on this morning. This is huge undertaking because I have collected recipes and cookbooks for 20+ years. So it isn't anywhere near finished. My main goal was to get the prayer journal ready to go.

I'm hoping that this week I can implete some of things that I had hope to start the first of the year but seems like I couldn't get it all together. My brain has been racing with tons of projects that I needed/wanted to do to make my life run smoother. My goal is this will become a lifestyle that I can keep up with regardless of it I am working full-time or staying back at home. I love being at home and making my home a place that the family wants to be. Love going the extra mile for them. And seems like for the last several years, I play catch up. I think Michael is on board with all the changes so that helps.

This week he is heading to Houston on Wednesday to visit with his mom. We are expecting more test results tomorrow, but unless we hear something different than what we have, she only has about six months to live. It is so sad. He wants to go and spend some quality time with her while she still can enjoy the visit. I'm glad he is going, although he is only going to be there through Friday. He doesn't want to stay to long as she will not feel up to him being there that long. It will give his dad some support too. Please keep Betty Sue and Michael's family in your prayers. We can only hope for a miracle at this point.

Michael and I went out on a date last night. He came in the family room yesterday and ask me if I wanted to go on a date. I was like sure, where you want to go...he wanted to go grab dinner and go to the movies. So off we went. We saw "Juno". It was different, the language was rather bad but other than that, it had a good message. If you haven't seen it you can see the review here from the New York Times.

He also did my taxes yesterday. Yeah, glad that is done. I went ahead and filed online which is the way I normally do. The money is usually deposited into my account with 7-10 days. Not bad.

At the moment, he is over making me my favorite....he is making breakfast tacos. They are so yummy. Although I am allergic to eggs, he makes them with egg beaters and they seem to work for me. I always ask him to make extras so that I can have them throughout the week for snacks. I can tell you that my house some 'garlicy' at the moment, but I love it.

My Featured site this week is Christians United. They have some wonderful resources for you. Everything for family fun, to studing the bible, devotions, etc. The bible trivia quiz that I have added to my site( in the right hand column) is from there site. Take a look...maybe you will find something that you would like for your site, or to help you with your walk.

Well ladies, I need to scoot, want to make a small post at my other blog and then spend some time with Michael, not to mention grab a nap sometime this afternoon.

God Bless

Friday's Here and Saturday's Coming!

The weekend is finally here....woohoo! What a wild and busy week this has been. I am so glad that it is finally over. My plans for this weekend is get myself organized and get some of work done on my HSB and my other sites that I am working on. So hoping this is going to be a productive weekend. And I think this is going to be a good weekend for it too. Today was a gray gloomy day. Extremely overcast. The sun never came out. So my little bear with his umbrella and boots is so appropriate for today. Actually I got up this morning to slick roads and debated on trying to drive in myself....but I decided to give it a try and I made it. I was so proud of myself. I hate to drive on icy roads, but the salt trucks were out if full force. They ended up canceling school here today. It started sleeting last night about midnight and continued until about 6 or so this AM, then the rain set in. With the temps getting up to 40 today that help to melt the ice for the drive home. Thinking this weekend we are suppose to get more showers, but we are suppose to get up near 50.

This week I have spent alot of time rededicating myself to reading God's word which I have been doing since the first of the year. I am signed up through a website called Bible In a Year. It is a wonderful resource, they email me the readings and I can chose to read it online or using my bible. Alot of the time at work, I will read it online and then during the weekend, I will read my bible. I am loving it. I also have been reading a new book I purchased this past weekend called " A Woman's Call to Prayer" by Elizabeth George. It's a great book. I found a great devotional, "Making Prayer a Priority" if you have time swing by and read it. Actually there are some wonderful devotions at this site.

Do you see this laundry basket? Can you guess what I am going to be doing? Actaully Michael put my bed sheets in the laundry this morning, so I have to get upstairs and get them back on my bed....but I have several loads to do this weekend. I have been working on a weekly schedule for my chores. I have been breaking down each day of the week with daily chores to keep me better organized throughout my work week. At this point, when I work everyday and get home, I don't feel like doing much....but I think with a list of a few things to do daily, it will cut back on my Saturday chores. Although sometimes I really like to spend a Saturday doing some deep cleaning, which is what I want to do and then incorporate my new plan next week.

I also plan to do some work with my recipes. I have been working on a daily theme for my meals. Monday-chicken, Tuesday-leftovers, Wednesday-Ground Beef, Thursday-Chicken, Friday-go out or leftovers Saturday-try new recipe Sunday-Soup/sandwiches, pizza, etc....that is kinda the game plan for now...so want to get that organized so that I can start implementing that this next week too. I am going to do a major kitchen clean tomorrow, clean oven, clean out the fridge and wipe it down, etc...so that I can start on Monday with a clean slate.

This is just a few of the things that I want to work on this weekend...as well as work on some

of my new blog ideas for my other sites. I have a plan wrote out and outlined, but not sure if I will have time to get to it or not....if not, hoping that next week I can work some more on it in the evenings. I also think Michael is going to work on my taxes this weekend. Woohoo! Wondering how that tax rebate is going to effect me? What are you ladies going to do with your tax rebate? Anything fun? Actually at the moment, I plan to put mine in my savings account. I am trying to get my savings build up good before I start moving next year. I have a goal (amount) set that I would like to have to help off set the moving cost. My intention is to do whatever I can to make sure that we are financially secure, my hope is after I move, I will not have to work, but will be able to stay at home again. If I decide I want to do something part time then I will look into that...but I don't want to feel the need to have to work. I will be working hard to make it possible for us to live off one income. I really need to pray more about that.

Well I am going to go upstairs now and get my bed ready for a cozy nights sleep. Have you ever sprayed your fresh sheets with lavendar spray? I have a wonderful spray that I use on my sheets and it is heavenly. When I lay my head on my pillow, the light scent fills the nostrils and it is the BEST. Nothing better than taking a warm relaxing bath or shower and climbing between freshly washed sheets that smell terrific. Talk about great dreams.
My hope is to get back tomorrow to post my progress and also share more about the other books I got last weekend. Hi I'm Cindy and I'm a Book-a-holic.

Sweet Dreams and God Bless!

New Years Eve Morning-Updated

Hello friends....I hope this finds you all having a great day so far. This morning I actually slept in until about 7ish or so. Not sure when the last time I did that was. Anyway, I am sipping my coffee and decided to send a little note.

I have been organizing more of my HMB(Household Management Binder) with some print out forms and tidbits of information that I have had strolled all over my office. Most things are now contained within the pages of that binder. I also started constructed my Holiday Binder. I thought this would be a great help for me during the holidays when my life seems to take on much more. It's hard for me, the older I get to retain information....and since I am a list maker by nature, figured this would be a great way to keep all my ideas and information all in one place. I will place a area in my binder to place gifts that I have already given, hence not duplicating.

Actually going to finish up a few things on the computer this morning and then Michael and I are going to head out with Josh and maybe do something before taking him to the airport.

I have had a wonderful time this holiday break from work, I am heading back on Wednesday and I know that I will be SWAMPED since I have been gone for almost two weeks. But can't stay off forever. Anyway, eager to go in and get through the week. Friday after I get off I will be going to have my LASIK eye surgery done. I can't tell you how long I have wanted to do this, and am so excited about it. I feel pretty confident about it and the doctor doing the procedure but when you mess with your eyes...there is always a possibility that something could go wrong. So if you will remember me in prayer this Friday I would truly feel blessed.

Hope to get around and personally(via a note) wish each of you a Happy New Year.

Got any plans for tonight?

Sending hugs!

UPDATE: It is almost noon and I will be heading out shortly, but I hope if you have time to stay and visit for awhile you will check out some great sites. I still have many more to add, but will get there with time. Now, if I can figure out how to add groups I belong too and such. Do I need to change templates already? :) Have a great afternoon/evening.
Me

Only 2 days to go

and a new year will be upon us. For awhile I have wanted to redo my websitec and thought this would be a good time to do it. I have been struggling with many things going on in my "real" life and I want to focus on "simplicity" this year, hence the new blog. I hope that you will visit with me here. I also hope I can figure out how add all my wonderful graphics to this site. In time.

Today it has been dreary and rainy here all day, which is okay with me. I have spent the day working on my new Household Management Binder. Boy, was that a all day process. I will also be creating on for my web work as well as for the holidays. All in time. In creating my binder I had the help of using Candy's site. I had started one years ago when I was staying at home, but now that I am working I needed one more structured to my schedule now. So basically I redid everything. So far I am happy with it, but still have to add all the "guts" to it. I have some of it, but have much more that I want to add.

Michael's son is here now, he and Michael are at the Redskins/Dallas game. Sitting in freezing temps and rain. Doesn't sound like fun to me. Anyhow, Dallas is losing so I am sure that Michael is going to hate that he spent all day in the cold for that. Can't call him a fair weathered fan. Josh is leaving tomorrow afternoon, so Michael and I will be taking him back to the airport. Not sure if we will be coming straight home or go out and do something for New Years Eve.

Oh yeah, Thanks for all the congrats on our wedding. Believe me once the date has been set, I will be letting you all know. Not to mention, I am sure I will be talking about it on here.

Gonna scoot off for now. Hope you all have a great night.

Hugs!