This Week: What We Are Reading

Through the end of the year, we are sharing what is going on in our lives. As you can see from the schedule below, this week we are talking about what we are reading!

Nov. 1- Reading
8- Hearing
15- Creating
22- Cooking
29- Cleaning

Dec. 6- Decorating
13- Planning

Tension

JD recently attended the Catalyst East conference. It is a leadership conference that "sees a need to ignite and unite the next generation of leaders allowing their passions and gifts to flourish and have maximum impact in our churches and culture."

He came home fired up about what God is doing in the lives of other believers! It was so great to see that passion in him. Don't you love how conferences, retreats, etc. put us back on that mountaintop in our relationship with the Lord?

The entire conference was titled "The Tension is Good." In one of the sessions tension was related to the battle between home and job. I want JD at home. His boss wants him at work. He can't be at both places at once. Sometimes his job is going to require him to put in extra hours. Sometimes we will need him around the house a bit more.

Can you see the tension? If he puts in too many hours at work, the home suffers and he'll lose his grip on his family, maybe even damage those relationships permanently. But if he's always at home he's going to lose his job and everyone suffers including his calling from God. He can't ignore one tension completely, therefore he has to allow one to overpower the other at times so that the "tension is good".

My job as his wife is to be okay with the tension. I know that if he puts in lots and lots of hours for VBS or Fall Festival, he can take a day off to get away with us after the rush is over. VBS takes HOURS to pull off, as in 80+ hours a week for a couple of weeks in a row. (It may not be many hours for your family, but it is a lot for us.) And the first year I thought I was going to scream. And I probably did--at him. But I eventually learned that this is once a year. And if I give him his space and let him work, he desires to be at home with me when it is all said and done. Yelling only makes him want to stay at work.

This is only one of many tensions that exist in his life and together we are learning when one tension gets priority, the other side gets it's turn right around the corner.

Speaking of tensions, how about his time at home watching sports and relaxing versus family time with no TV....tension? Normally, yes, but not tonight because I will be showing my husband love by watching our Texas Rangers play in the World Series!!! I'm just as excited to watch baseball history and allow these two tensions to walk hand in hand!

Love Languages

I am currently reading (or should be reading) The Five Love Languages of Children for a Bible study at church. It has been reminding me of when my husband and I read the original version before getting married. I have been trying to be aware of showing him love throughout the day and "filling his love tank" in ways that mean something to him.

The five languages identified in the book are:

* Physical touch

* Quality Time

* Words of Affirmation

* Acts of Service

* Gifts

Have you read these books and identified your spouse's love language? Did it improve your marriage in any way?

Protecting Our Husbands

October is one of my favorite times of year, and one of the reasons is sports! Football, baseball, and near the end of the month, basketball!

This may not be as exciting for you as it is for me, but we love sports at our house. The first date Lee and I had was to an NC State football game. We love to watch games together. Last year for his birthday I got him a subscription to a popular sports magazine. We both enjoy reading it. But a couple weeks ago, I intercepted the magazine and threw it away before he could read it. Not because it had the hated UNC Tarheels on the cover, but because it was what they call the "Body Issue." This issue included page after page of naked athletes. It was at least one-third of the magazine. Certain body parts were covered, of course.

In seminary I took a class on sexual ethics. The professor was very open about talking about his former addiction to pornography and the safeguards he uses so he is not tempted now. He told our class that one time he ripped a page out of harmless Talbot's catalog because the face of one of the models reminded him of an image of a woman he had seen before. An image he was trying to forget.

In her book, For Women Only, Shaunti Feldhahn writes, "Even happily married men are instinctively pulled to visually 'consume' attractive women, and these images can be just as alluring whether they are live or recollected." She goes on to write, "Images often arise without warning, even if the guy doesn't want them." Because I have two sisters and no brothers, this "mental rolodex" idea was new to me. I had no idea men were so visual.

Now that Lee and I are a "team," I need to give extra help in the areas where he is weak. Part of that help is protecting him from images he doesn't want/need to see. Please understand I completely trust my husband, but there is no reason to make living a pure life harder for him than it has to be. And if that means throwing away a magazine, or changing the channel when a Victoria's Secret commercial comes on, I'll do what I can to help.

A Bag is in My Bag

I recently went to my first Thirty One Party. Thirty One is a faith based (Proverbs 31) company that sells quality bags, totes, stationary for families, women, and children. And to top it off, they offer monogramming. Super cute stuff with great fabrics and styles to choose from.

My friend was the consultant at the party. She is such a great woman of God. She and her family are planning to head to the mission field in the coming days. But she didn't start her business to raise money for her missions experience. Instead she is selling to raise money and awareness for an emergency children's shelter in our area. This home is where children go when DSS removes them from their home while they wait to be placed into foster care. It is such an amazing place. Unfortunately, the state has decreased the funds allotted to the home. My friend is helping them to decrease the financial deficit by donating her profits from Thirty One sales.

At this party I couldn't decide between all the great items they have. I ended up going practical. I bought a small zipper pouch to put inside my purse. You can see it has an E on it. It's not to contain my stuff, but my daughter's stuff inside my bag. She now knows that the only thing she can get out of my purse is her bag.  

I just got it this week, so it is still pretty bare on the inside. It does have the essentials though, crayons, jewelry, and lip gloss!

If you would like to support the children's home while getting a goody for yourself, check out HER SITE!

Inside Kama's Bags

I currently don't carry a purse on a regular basis. Maybe it has something to do with the 2 diaper bags, frequent trips to the gym or double stroller that has space to hold my keys on top. I just don't want to mess with another bag!

So I carry a wallet/keychain (from Hardin-Simmons) with all my necessary items:
* drivers license
* 2 credit cards
* 2 old receipts
* El Fenix tattoo
* Cici's frequent eater card (with a free buffet on our next visit)
* a little cash and coins
* an old shopping list
* a list telling me which credit card to use to get 5% cash back (Discover at restaurants, Visa at grocery)

My other bags carry everything I think I might need for the boys in their corresponding bag. Dietrich's contains:
* 2 diapers
* clothes from last season
* wipes
* papers from church (for the past 2 weeks)
* napkins
* diaper rash cream and a sample from the doctor's office with a coupon
* a clothes pin (why is that in there?)

Hudson's contains:
* my nursing cover
* napkins
* used jars of baby food (that need to be washed out and saved for future projects)
* crackers and graham crackers from our Jason's Deli lunch on Sunday
* 2 diapers (one is the wrong size)
* El Fenix tattoo
* lots of crayons from restaurants
* clothes from last season
* wipes

Looks like it's time to clean them out and start again with essentials!! I won't even start to tell you what's in the last purse I carried. It's embarrassing how much unnecessary junk is in there!!

My Sunday Purse

On Sundays I get out the big purse! So here's what I cleaned out when we got home from church yesterday:

• I'm not sure where my Bible went, but I do have my four year old's Bible, The Jesus Storybook Bible, which we love! I also have my books for the Sunday School class I teach. We are going through Wendy Alsup's study of Ephesians, By His Wounds, You Are Healed. This week I supplemented with a handout from Self-Confrontation. Also in the "book stack" is my prayer notebook and my son's drawing pad. 
• Our almost five year old sits with us in church, so I have a few things to help keep him busy, in case Daddy preaches too long. :) Fruit snacks, a car, his watch, and crayons. I also have the card I was supposed to turn in when I picked him up from Sunday School. Ooops!
• My next stack has my wallet, lipstick, pens, sunglasses, tweezers ('cause the best place to pluck the eyebrows is in the mirror in the car!), and a safety pin in case there's a wardrobe malfunction. Oh, and my cell phone. Which was especially necessary yesterday since a friend was in labor and I was getting text messages from her mom and sister!
• Finally, all the pages from the boys' classes. Looks like they both talked about leaves yesterday.

That's it! Glad I have such a big "Sunday purse!"

This Week

This week we're talking about what's in our purses/bags! Wonder which one of us has the most coupons? Or snacks? Or old receipts? Or most books? Should be fun to find out!

On the Road Again

My house is empty this week. JD is speaking at a conference and LilE and I are playing with the extended family in Texas.

On the agenda:

-an overnight with JD's family to include dinner and horseback riding

-Trip to the State Fair of Texas

-Dinner with friends

-Letterboxing

-Dinner with my brother

It is going to be a busy week, but we will soak up every minute with our family!

An Easy Week

Last weekend, I put on a craft show at my church. The week before, my sister-in-law had a baby. This has been a crazy couple of weeks, so I am looking forward to really doing nothing this week. Here is the plan:

Monday: clean up the house, gym

Tuesday: gym, grocery shopping, new gym shoes for Mom and shoes for #2

Wednesday: Bible study

Thursday: go visit the new baby

Friday: gym

Mixed throughout each day will be playtime, naps, walks, trips to the park, learning opportunities (I hope) and other fun activities for a 9 month old and a 2 year old. That means LOTS of trucks! Hopefully the naps will be at the same time and I can work on some crafting, but first, I need to figure out what I want my new project to be!

Calm before the Storm

My husband and I were looking at our calendar last week and realized every weekend between now and December is booked. And usually, the weekends in December fill up quickly! So I'm officially calling this week "the calm before the storm." Here are a few things I'm doing to prepare for what's coming...

• Super cleaning the house. Next week my friend Teri Lynne (who blogs at Pleasing to You) will be coming to stay at my house on her way to Relevant. I'm really excited to see her again (we met in real life this summer at She Speaks). But before she gets here, I need to clean. Like get out Martha Stewart's Homekeeping Handbook and clean.

• Adding some color to our flower beds. I had planted marigolds in our vegetable garden this summer because the smell helps keep bugs away. The garden is done, but the flowers are still blooming! So I'm going to move them to a flower bed in the front yard. I kept a mum from last fall in a pot and it's almost ready to bloom again. Maybe a pumpkin or two and it will look like fall in my yard!

• Doing adoption paper work. Lee has his physical scheduled for this week, all our reference forms should be in, and we'll be getting our finger prints taken for FBI clearance. Love getting more checked off our to-do list each week!

• Eating more candy corn. And making candy corn shaped sugar cookies. And maybe candy corn bark (Savvy Moms Save) Maybe even homemade candy corn (Hoosier Homemade). 

• Getting out the glue gun. Even though I have seen a couple cute candy corn wreaths, I really love this one with felt rosettes from Songbirds & Buttons. She made it for less than $6!

And there's always the usual--laundry, cooking, washing dishes, home school lessons, reading, watching football & baseball, playing outside, going to the library, and blogging (here, here, here and here this week!).

Have you decorated for fall yet? 

This Week: What's Happening at Our Houses?

This week you'll get a behind the scenes look at what's happening at our houses! Come check out what we have to do, what we want to do, what we get to do, and what goes undone.

Craft Show Near Dallas

Hey everyone! I have put together a craft and gift show at my church, so if you live in the Dallas area (Fairview, TX 75069), be sure and stop by! There are over 60 vendors of all kinds! You can find more information at Friendship's Craft and Gift Show. It's open Saturday from 9:00-4:00 with free admission for shoppers!! Be sure you stop by and let me know you found out about it here (I'll be with my mom at booth 51). Have a great weekend!!

Our picture at last year's show

Getting My Craft On

My Google Reader is packed full of crafts and sewing projects for that "one day" when I have time. Will that day ever come? Until then, I will continue to make my to-do list even longer.

Here are my top 4 craft blogs to browse.

• Be Different...Act Normal
• Skip to My Lou
• The Polka Dot Chair
• Makes and Takes

What are yours?

Israel Trip Top 5 Links

This past week, I've been doing research on our upcoming trip to Israel. The sites I've visited each day to see what we'll be doing and create a mini-book (26 pages so far) detailing our stops are:

Bible Places

Holy Land Voyager

Life in the Holy Land

Ferrell's Travel Blog

Pastor's Tour (and various other sites to locate verses from the Bible of places we'll see)

Psalm 122:6-9 (New International Version)
6 Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:

"May those who love you be secure.
7 May there be peace within your walls

and security within your citadels."
8 For the sake of my brothers and friends,

I will say, "Peace be within you."
9 For the sake of the house of the LORD our God,

I will seek your prosperity.

Do you like to research places to see before you go on a trip?

Top 5 Homeschool Resource Sites

We homeschool our just turned three year old and almost five year old! Even though we use lots of great books & workbooks, I get most of my inspiration and ideas from other homeschool/preschool sites. Here are my top five favorites:

• Homeschool Creations
• 1+1+1=1
• Confessions of a Homeschooler
• Simple Homeschool
• Starfall

What are your favorite sites for ideas to do with your kids?

This Week: Favorite Websites

This week we are sharing our top five favorite websites! Whether they are the first five we check each day, or five favorites for something specific- you'll get to check them out with us!

We've also tentatively set the topics for the rest of the year! Here they are:
Oct. 4- Top 5 websites
11- At my house this week
18- What's in your purse/bag?
25- Loving our husbands

What We Are...
Nov. 1- Reading
8- Hearing
15- Creating
22- Cooking
29- Cleaning

Dec. 6- Decorating
13- Planning
20 & 27: off for Christmas

If you see anything that sparks your interest, we'd love to have you guest post! Just drop us an email (TodaysHousewife @ hotmail. com) to claim your week!