A Virtuous and Capable Wife

Proverbs 31:10-12 'Who can find a virtuous and capable wife? She is more precious than rubies. Her husband can trust her, and she will greatly enrich his life. She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life.'

Wow! That is a powerful passage. I got done typing and really thought about the last sentence. 'She brings him good, not harm, ALL the days of her life.' How many times have I said something snotty to my husband because he has hurt my feelings or I think he is doing something wrong? How many times has he asked me to do something and I have forgotten about it? How many times have I argued with him (even if it was just playfully) for the sake of playing the devil's advocate?

My Bible reading plan for this year is to read 2 chapters of the Old Testament, 1 chapter of Psalms, 1 chapter of Proverbs and 1-2 chapters of the New Testament daily. I got to Proverbs 31, though, and decided I should camp here for awhile instead of starting Proverbs over. I am going to take one section of Proverbs 31 each week and concentrate on it. I hope that by the end of the 8 weeks I will be a better wife and mother. If need be I will go back through it again and again. I have a really good book that I should be able to incorporate-A Woman After God's Own Heart by Elizabeth George. 

Thankfulness

Psalms 50:14-15 Make thankfulness your sacrifice to God, and keep the vows you made to the Most High. Then call on me when you are in trouble, and I will rescue you, and you will give me glory.

I have probably read this chapter in Psalms many times, but never picked up on this. I know we don't make physical sacrifices anymore, but God is saying that even if we were it is our hearts that matter to Him. We can make all the sacrifices we want and claim we are making them for God, but God knows our hearts. 

I want to live my life in a constant state of thankfulness. I want to thank God for the large blessings in my life as well as the small blessings. 

Thankfulness list for today:

1. All of our needs are met

2. Friends I can turn to when I want to share sorrows, frustrations and joys

3. Automated postage machines at the post office (the kind that weighs your package and prints out a shipping label and is available 24 hours per day)

4. At least two more months on my car's warranty 

5. A healthy family

Track 'meet'

I was recently discussing with my ds his upcoming track schedule. I asked him if he knew which races he was going to be competing in. He looked at me and said, "No, a meet is just where we go and meet each other and hang out." I almost died of laughter (laughing to myself, of course).  What was he thinking track was, just another alternative to PE?

Homeschool Memoirs #25

This week's theme is laundry and how many loads we do of it. We just moved into our new house and for the first time have the laundry room upstairs. It is nice because that is where the majority of the laundry is generated, but is an inconvenience because I am downstairs for most of my day. Even with the signal set to loud, I still have a hard time catching the loads when they are just getting finished. Most of the time I get to them hours later and they are already wrinkled. 

I would say we do an average of 6-7 loads of laundry per week. We only have 4 people living here, though, so that helps. I just started watching my girlfriend's 15mo daughter, but I only dirty one washcloth per day extra with her. I do keep little socks on hand, but as those are so tiny, they don't amount to much. 

Speaking of laundry and not catching it in time, I am off to fold and put away the load that has been sitting in the dryer for awhile. 

Track/Swimming/Soccer

Ds just tried out for track. We had to get him a last-minute physical that was quite the ordeal, but he made it to try-outs in time. It really was not a try-out as the coach did not cut anyone. Ds will ride the athletic bus to the high school every day after school and practice for 1 hour. The middle school has Friday and Monday off and they will have a two-hour practice Friday. He is very excited and sore from two days of running. Tuesday he ran about 2 miles and Wednesday he ran 3 miles in Converse sneakers. Poor kid could barely walk last night and went to bed around 7:30PM. Dad loaned him his running shoes until we can get to the store this weekend. Ds will be outfitted with new running shoes, several pairs of athletic shorts, several pairs of athletic pants and probably a couple of t-shirts. 

He also started taking percussion at school. His drum sticks (brand-new, but not expensive) are already missing, either lost or stolen so we will have to replace those. He is really loving school and has settled down with his behavior. He knows that he has to keep his grades up and have no behavior problems in order to stay in track. 

Dd signed up for the swim team, but practices do not start until April. We might sign her up for soccer as well, but it will overlap with swimming for about 3 weeks at the end. I am not sure if that will be too much for her. It might be too much for me as we will be having track meets, swim practice and soccer practice/games. Sounds like  a lot of running around to me.

What a beautiful day!

Nice weather has finally arrived! We have had such yucky weather for the longest time (yes, I know, it is officially winter) and I am more than ready to be able to go outside without a coat. We took the dogs to a dog park this weekend and had a great time. The dog park has a large open space for the dogs to run and play with plenty of picnic tables for the humans to sit at. Both dogs did great, but Annabelle wanted to stay close to us. The trainer at the dog obedience classes we are attending is working with her to socialize her with other dogs and also people. Milo was great with all of the dogs. He is such a stinker when he is on the leash, but acts like a completely different dog when he is off of it.

Today we headed off to the park in the neighborhood after lunch. Dd kicked a soccer ball back and forth and Annabelle chased after it, burning off lots of energy. We then headed over to the playground area and allowed 'little bug' (my daycare sweetie) to swing and play on the slides. Unfortunately, she slid right into some lovely water at the bottom of one of slides, so she got to take a bath when we got home. She proceeded to get dd and me wet from splashing. It did feel good, though.

I have most of the windows open in the house and the fans whirring. 

Dd's book report

This book report is about Utterly Me, Clarice Bean by Lauren Child.

Clarice is the second oldest in a family of seven, including a granddad. Her older brother Kurt is always shut up in his room, which smells like rotten cheese, her older sister Marcie is always grumpy, her younger brother Minal is always annoying, her dad is always on the phone, her mom is tired of being a "maid", and her granddad is, well, granddad.

Partway through the school year their teacher, Mrs. Wilberton, announces they are going to have a book exhibition. Unfortunately the winners' cup goes missing. Clarice and her utterly BEST friend Betty Moody decide to look for it together. They read mystery books about a girl named Ruby and they learn a lot from that. They decide to do their book exhibit on them. If they find the cup in time, can they win it?

I like this book because it seems as if you are reading her diary. It's also very funny. Once Betty loses her glasses in a nasty place and the janitor has to fish them out. I would recommend this book for most girls.

Pics of outside for MIL

These are pics that my MIL requested so she can give me gardening tips. Everyone is welcome to look at them, but they are not very interesting unless you are into gardening.

Planting area around the screened patio that the dogs have access to. If you keep following the house to the left you will see the bay-window.

Bushes around the kitchen bay-window. (above)

Close-up of the bushes closest to the front (from the second pic below). 
The garage is off to the left of this picture. The close-up is the picture above.

Close-up of bushes from pic below.
Looking at left side of house.

Close-up of bushes on the right side of patio (if you are looking at the house).

Right side of patio.

Finally...pictures of the house

I know, I know! You have all been waiting patiently for pictures of our new house. We have been in our house for almost two months now. The downstairs is pretty much how we want it. We are planning to replace the bathroom and kitchen linoleum with tile, replace the sliding glass door with a french door and replace all of the mini-blinds with 2" faux wood blinds. I will post more later. My computer is not "seeing" my camera.

                         Looking from the living room into the foyer. 

                                              View of the kitchen.                                                 Eat-in kitchen.
Looking from the living room into the office. You can see the kitchen bar off to the right.                          Looking into the living room from the foyer.

Flower dissection

Dd is doing Apologia's Botany book for science this year and seems to really be getting into it. We got a late start on some of the experiments due to poor planning on my part and the stores not carrying seeds until just recently. Below is a picture of a flower dissection that she did this last week. She is amazing me with what she remembers about the different plant parts and what they are for.

Ds's Knee

Ds injured himself at school while playing with some friends. He tripped over another kid's foot and slammed his knee into a concrete curb. He called me from school to tell me about it, but did not mention that his knee was swollen to nearly twice it's normal size. I was shocked when he came home and I saw how big it was. We went to the nearest urgent care center as it was after hours and x-rays showed that nothing was broken or fractured. Even now, one week later, he still has some swelling and pain.