Change for the Holidays

I saw this book advertised in the latest Family Christian Bookstores ad and had to go take a look. I'm a pretty organized person, but find myself unraveling around the holidays. I took a field trip to the store, flipped through the pages and decided it looked good, so I made the purchase...yes, it was on sale and I used a coupon. (BTW, it's on sale for $14.99)

I planned on sharing some of the ideas at our upcoming women's ministry events (and will still do this), but as I read through the first few pages this afternoon, I felt couldn't wait and needed to share it with you now. For those of you like minded planners you may want to take a look. One of the key planning times is the day after Halloween, aka this Saturday.

In my mind, simplifying my holidays falls naturally into the change series Pastor Steve is leading us through. Wouldn't it be nice to feel less stressed this holiday season? Imagine what it would be like to actually enjoy and look forward to Christmas. What impact would we have on our little corner of the world if we were able to continue our daily devotions, healthy meal planning, exercise, etc. through the holidays?

No, I'm not intoxicated on fairy dust or on a sugar high from eating the Halloween candy before Halloween...I'm just excited about the possibilities and benefits from a little planning now and the potential impact in December! Take a look and share your thoughts...we all benefit from shared experiences.

Upcoming Events

I hope you are enjoying our change series as much as I am. There seems to be something each week (or multiple somethings) that I can and should change in my life. Personally as part of the First Place 4 Health group, I’m working on balance of the mind, soul, spirit and strength.

So much to do, so little time…do you feel like that? While there are lots of things we will discover we need to change, there are a few constants that I don’t think will change, at least anytime soon. Our lives will continue to be full and the traffic won’t be going away soon!

Even though our lives are busy and we do have to face traffic, we still need to be meeting together. We do this every Sunday and by participating in our Lifegroups. We also do this when we gather just the women of our church. We certainly need each other and need to nurture those relationships as Steve pointed out this past Sunday.

Here is a list of our upcoming Women’s ministry activities. Pray over your schedule and plan ahead to attend whenever possible.

Are you a stay at home, work from home or work evenings…in other words are you home during the day? If so, we’re going to gather together on Wednesday, November 5 and Wednesday, December 10th from 9:30-11:30 to encourage each other, have a time of fellowship and prayer. Childcare will be provided for a small fee.

How do we manage all the changes we’re trying to make? That will be the focus of our Change evening on Friday, November 14 at my home from 7:30-9 or so. We’ll have a healthy recipe demonstration and taste testing in case you don’t have a chance to eat dinner, make a craft and hear a devotional from Kristie Buttram.

Our Christmas Activity will be on Saturday, December 6th from 2-4 pm (times are tentative and may change a bit) at the home of Sherri Markle. Expect to hear some strategies to “change” your Christmas celebrating.

Our annual Women’s retreat is being planned for the beginning of March, more details to follow, but did you realize how precious you are to God?

I will send out reminder emails for each of our separate events as they get closer. Pray over your schedule and plan ahead to attend whenever possible. I look forward to seeing each one of you soon!

Blog Fog

It would seem that I'm in a blog fog...having trouble finding the time to write entries and not much to say. I'm in the land of potty training, feels like twins, though I'm running in different directions...Maryn to the bathroom and Winston outside! We'll see what the weeks brings. Enjoy the fall weather!

Success!

What a great success the pancake breakfast was today! We have such a fabulous church family and I hope you were as blessed as I was because of their hard work! Thank you so much to each person who got up extra early to make (seemingly) hundreds of pancakes and sausage patties! I also have to give high praise to our teens who served us! What a great job they did, trying to see who could "out serve" the other. In case you didn't know, I'm not sure how you couldn't have noticed, but perhaps in a caffeine deprivation you didn't, anyway...it was guys versus the girls. Each team has claimed victory, though the plate count is still not in. Our teens were eager to help in anyway needed and I can't begin to express my gratitude to them!

There are so many others who also helped with setting the tables, pouring juice, getting things to and from my car and I don't want to leave anyone out, so thank you to each one for all you did today to help make our first pancake breakfast such a tremendous success!

Change Starting this Weekend

I think the only constant in life is change. And change is coming at LCC in the way of our 6 week Change Series. I'm looking forward to all we are going to learn, though I suspect some of the necessary changes I need to make won't be easy. Take diet, nutrition and exercise for example...is that easy for anyone.? Actually, I know the answer is "yes" for some, "sometimes" for others and "seldom or never" for others. I fall in the last group at the moment, but change starts this weekend. It's the first week for our new First Place Bible study group, led by Lisa Downing. There are a group of us ready to embark on this journey to balance.

And then another expected change is the change of seasons...cooler weather, fall foliage, pumpkins, mums, etc. Whatever change you are facing, I pray that God would guide your path and be your constant companion.

It works for toddlers...

This morning Maryn wasn't getting her way and in true Maryn fashion she dropped to the ground, screaming and rolling around demanding her way...I don't even remember what she wanted anymore. She was ranting, raving and rolling all over the family room carpet...yes that sweet thing you see on Sunday mornings does have a temper and she is 2, so it goes with the territory! So what did I do? I laid down on the carpet and did the same thing she was doing to show her how crazy she looked. (Now I realize that some parenting experts would tell me that you need an audience for a tantrum and I usually go that route, but I couldn't resist this morning.)

Thankfully my mock tantrum didn't backfire on me. It did diffuse the situation and we had fun wrestling and laughing, oh, I got drooled on as well. It's a few hours later and I was thinking it would be nice if the same strategy would work for my teenager's little outbursts, somehow I think not! But alas, God deals with each of us individually. Sometimes He uses humor to bring us around and sometimes the dreaded 2 x 4.

Frustration, not inspiration...

I should have known that when I ripped my jeans "stretching" them when I put them on this morning that it was an indicator of things to come. Actually my morning went very well..vet appointment and running errands. Maryn and I shared Arby's for lunch. She had a blast looking at all the books at Borders. I think it was her first time there...so many books, so little time.

The problems resurfaced later in the afternoon as I went to the freezer to get some salmon for dinner. I actually had a plan and a healthy on at that! Imagine my surprise when there was no salmon. Dinner needed to be on the table quick so I found some sausage and decided I'd brush up on pancake flipping skills for the upcoming pancake breakfast.

Maryn pulled her chair up to the counter to help. She started washing dishes but decided stirring pancake batter would be much more fun, so she stirred away while I cooked the sausage. She was doing a great job, only sticking her fingers in the batter on occasion until I realized she grabbed the pot scrubber to assist her stirring. Only God knows the last time I ran it through the dishwasher to sanitize it! I did opt for the photo op...I'll have to post a picture when I download, excuse me, when Rich downloads the pictures. It was a manageable photo op until Maryn decided to show me the stirrer, and drip pancake batter all over the chair, counter, floor, herself, etc.!

Up until this point I was really doing fine. I stopped, cleaned up Maryn, ran to school to pick up Josh and returned home to re-make the pancake batter, without help this time. I got everything going, the boys were helping me and we discovered we had very little syrup...URGHHHH! I reached peak frustration levels as I started sneezing uncontrollably, while messing up many of the pancakes.

Oh, I forgot to mention that during this wild time, Winston (the puppy) was shredding paper all over so now I need to vacuum, well I needed to anyway, but now I really NEED to. So, if you need any documents shredded, I have the shred-o-matic puppy. I decided to call it a day and put on my pj's, yes at 7 pm. Definitely not an inspirational day, can anyone relate?

By the way, I do need volunteers to help make pancakes and sausage at home the morning of the pancake breakfast at church on October 5. Let me know if you can help!