Creative Homemaker

Our family life has been a bit hectic to say the least over the last few days. I have barely had enough time to catch my breath, let alone write funny, inspiring things on my blog. But a couple if things have come up that I would like to share with my readers and ask for special prayer. My dear mother in law, Nana, is in the hospital. Several years ago she had her entire lower intestine removed, and now she has a blockage due, the doctors think, to scar tissue from the original procedure. Nana has fibromyalgia and a bone deficiency as well. She has nerve damage from pinched nerves in her vertebrae and has had multiple surgeries to correct her crumbling disks. This nerve damage has affected her bowel movements anyway and now to have this blockage problem, she is in serious condition. Please pray that the doctors can find out what is wrong and correct it quickly and efficiently, also for comfort and pain control. She is also a smoker and it probably suffering from withdrawal symptoms as ...

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Wrong Way" : “if you say so” I have thought about just deleting this and not commenting, but my blog is my witnessing tool and I feel I should address this person’s comment. Apparently Anonymous thinks that this is my opinion only, and I want to assure the reader that it isn’t. We all hear about boycotts and people spending their money wisely. If you were an environmentalist and a company that sold a product that you wanted used environmentally unfriendly practices in their testing for example, you wouldn’t use their products. You would use cruelty-free products. You spend your money on companies that support your beliefs. We all do it, and no one would say anything about it to anyone else. As a Christian, I believe that this kind of marketing and consumerism is even more important, we aren’t just talking about saving owls or manatees, we’re talking about eternal life, and I for one will be more careful where my money goes. I ju...

Yesterday I had some laminating to get done. I’m making BINGO cards for my kids’ activities over the summer, to help my pre-K learn some stuff before he starts school. I heard from a neighbor that there was a place in town that did laminating. (We live in a small town, population about 3500, not a whole lot of choices available for specialty stores in the area.) I was looking forward to saving on gas and time; I didn’t want a trip to Kinko’s, a drive of about 45 minutes. In our town, there is a strong New Age influence, and I should have been more aware before my trip out. I got to the mini-mall where the mailbox-laminating store was and I guess my desire to get my BINGO cards done was overwhelming my discernment, because I could see that this was not the kind of place I wanted my money to go, yet I went in and had it done anyway. When I walked in, I felt all creepy inside, and strange. I could feel the Holy Spirit trying to tell me to leave but I ignored the sensation. Not anymore. As...

Yesterday was the first full day of summer break, and we had errands to do. I went several places with all the kids in tow, 5 of them, two in the double stroller, and three walking beside me. We went to the PX, the bank and the commissary, then my beloved Wal-Mart! (Hehe!) I know that 5 kids may seem like a lot to some people, it must, everyone kept commenting. "Are these all yours?" "Wow, you have a full house, don't you?" "You must be a busy mom." I kept thinking, why don't we ever hear comments to the contrary, "My goodness, don't you have any children?" "Wow, your house must be empty!" "You must sit around and eat bon-bons all day, with no children to raise!"

This really snuck up on me, and I feel totally unprepared. I'm usually so full of great intentions for doing special things for the teachers and then they fall through until the last minute when I pull something out of my hat and astound everyone with my creativity. How much better could I do if I actually planned ahead, I wonder!? So, three teachers need some keepsake that will actually prove to them how awesome I think they have been in my kids' lives. How do I do that in the space of a weekend. Which already happens to be filled to everflowing. I don't want these poor teachers to think that they have not made a profound difference in my kids, because they truly have. Chels' teacher has brought her out of her shell by commplimenting, and encouraging her to be a great reader and creative writer. Miss Busy's teacher has shown her that it's ok to get your hands dirty while catching bugs and daily excercise is good for your body as well as your brain. Ace's te...

Every year about this time, I pull my Snackmaster food dehydrator out of the garage and give it a good scrub. Suzy Snacky is one of my servant-girls . She will sit on my counter faithfully humming away to preserve the foods we find all summer long. Last Thursday while I was volunteering at our local food bank they had a pallet-full of organic bananas. I brought home a whole box. Now, the organic part is better, I’m sure, but it doesn’t make that much of a difference to me one way or the other, don’t get me wrong, I don’t want pesticides on my foods any more than the next mom, but when I was growing up and we raised much of our own foods, vegetables, fruits, chickens, hogs and beef, it was pretty much all organic anyway and we didn’t pay more for it, I guess that is the part that is my gripe. But, alas, I digress. So I brought home my box full of bananas and immediately filled Suzy with all the trays I could find. My kids love dried bananas, they call it banana candy. One batch, 9 t...

My Miss Busy brought a paper home from school from her music teacher announcing that the community youth choir was holding auditions. She's a pretty good singer for a nine-year old. She love to sing and does so with many of the songs we listen to on our Christian Radio Station. I called the director last week and left a message that we were interested in an audition for her. The director called me back yesterday, unfortunately we were out of the house...at a Doctor's appointment...for both girls...for strep throat. They won't be singing any time soon.

This morning in my email I received a notice that I was being published. I had submitted a story to Heroic Stories and they accepted my entry. Pretty exciting I think. Check out their site, and sign up for their e-newsletter, my story will be in the next edition. It is about the Chehalis, Washington flood cleanup I did. Then come back and read more of the story here , here, here and here. If you have come over from heroic stores.com, welcome to my blog and leave a comment so I know you’re reading. Hope to see more of you soon. Your comments are my “salary,” I’d love to get a “pay raise!”