Wednesday, September 1, 2010

IT'S OFFICIAL!

I'm happy to announce that I am officially blogging over at my new "home" in cyberspace, THE WISE WOMAN BUILDS HER HOUSE. It also means I am officially no longer blogging here In The Midst.

The new blog will have familiar "life as it happens" moments, as journaled here IN THE MIDST, but I hope that you'll also find the new blog to be practical and helpful to you in your day-to-day as well. Please head over and check out the right side of your screen, where you'll find a "What you can expect" note for further information.

I invite you become a follower so I can be aware of you and be praying for you (I already am), and thank you for taking the time to read here at In The Midst.
http://wisewomenlovejesus.blogspot.com/

Toni

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Friday, August 20, 2010

There is a season....change.

CHANGE IS COMING!
(Click on the link above to learn more.)
I will likely make the move in September.
Hope you can join me in my new blogland home.

Toni

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Snow Treasure


I am almost through reading SNOW TREASURE to my children. I read this book when I was in the 4th grade and it made a lasting impression on me. My 11, 9, and 8 year olds are a completely captive audience and plead with me to read more when I close the book after each reading. It is believed to be a true story (a Norwegian sailing vessel docked in the U.S. during WWII. The captain told a vague story of how the gold he was carrying, came to be transported out of Norway.) The historical setting, facts, danger, and adventure makes for a wonderful read aloud. Chapters are brief, so you would be able to pick this up and read it to your children wherever you could carve out ten minutes in your day.

I highly suggest SNOW TREASURE by Marie McSwigan.
Click on the link below for a brief but dramatic trailer.


Snow Treasure Book Trailer

Toni

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Toni

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Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Life in the Fast Lane


Sheesh, I need a seat belt and flying goggles for this time of year, as life seems to take off at a lightning-fast pace. Our new homeschool year officially begins next Thursday. I spent three hours this past Sunday, working on our family schedule. Oy vey, the rough draft is a little intimidating.

As it stands, I'll be up much earlier and we'll adhere to a structured schedule to meet the demands of each new day.
My two oldest need to get to swim practice 3 times per week.
My youngest dd has dance on Thursdays.
My 3 year old will go to preschool 2 days per week.
My husband and I have bible study every other Wednesday night.
We also work out together 3-4 times per week, in addition to taking 2 mile family walks together as often as possible.
And due to the swim schedule, our dinner time will now officially be 4:30pm every day (but we always eat between 4:30pm and 5:15pm anyway).
Yee gads, my head is spinning like a satellite, I tell you.

But you know what? As Christians, we are cautioned about the trap of laziness. Proverbs 19:15, for example, reads, "Slothfulness casts into a deep sleep, and an idle person will suffer hunger."
For me, to hunger is to want. A procastinator by nature, I have had to fight hard to bring my family to a place of peaceful organization. As a recovering procrastinator, I must continually work at this, as I know from experience that not being organized and productive will leave me (and those I love) in want.
Wanting peace.
Wanting uncluttered.
Wanting to know, "What next?"
Wanting order.

There are many more verses that admonish laziness while validating hard work. And I have faith that as we begin our year, my Heavenly Father will be faithful to guide us, helping me to alter my course of action when necessary. This assurance He has also given me in His word (Proverbs 16:9 In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.) Perhaps, once I've tweaked it, I'll post our working schedule for those who care to see. I'm no expert, but like me, perhaps there would be something in my schedule that you could glean from, for yours.

Let's shift gears, shall we?
So yesterday was our annual send off/kick off. That is, we send off the summer (how it breaks my heart to say that) and kick off our upcoming school year and family schedule. We head up to Indiana Beach, an amusement park built on an island in the middle of Lake Schaeffer (or Lake Freeman if you ask the new owners). You have to cross a long, wide foot bridge to enter the park (how totally cool is that?! Click on the image above and you'll see the bridge on the left.)
It's a small, very retro amusement park that hasn't really been updated since the early 1970's or so and we LOVE it that way. They play music from that era and we feel like we stepped back into our own childhoods. Oh my goodness, how fun!

Because it's small, we can easily walk the park without us or the children getting too exhausted. Three of the five rollercoasters surround Kiddieland, so it's super easy to let 3 year old Brandon ride his little heart out while our bigger kids leave with one parent to ride the rollercoasters. We can easily switch off and everyone is happy.

The kids anticipate this trip weeks in advance (months, really) and scream for me to come into the room if the Indiana Beach commercial airs on TV (How many times must I run in before they determine I've done it enough?) They get so fixated on "all things amusement parks" that they begin to confuse parks, or even ride names, which cracks me up. For example, they heard a commercial for Cedar Point (greatest amusement park in the entire world, hands down) and their park and ride confusion kicked in.
Reece: "Mom, how come we don't have a SHOOT THE RAFFIDS at Indiana Beach?"
Me: "I don't think anyone has a Shoot The RAFFIDS, honey, because that's not the name of the ride."
Reece:"Uh huh, it is."
Me: No, it's not Shoot the Raffids..."
Reece: (cutting me off and a bit frustrated with me too) "Yes it is, Mom."
Brandon: "No, Mommy's wite. It's NOT dat. It's Shoot The RABBITS!"

Uh hem, I assure you no rabbits were harmed in the settling of this debate.

Toni

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Friday, August 13, 2010

Life as it comes.

Okay, so. I sliced my index finger open on a food can a few days ago. The thing is, I'd be more likely to lose a digit with a kitchen knife, seeing as I cook with fresh produce almost exclusively. But there I was, opening a can of Cream of Celery.

I can never do these things during the daytime, when I could head over to my doctor's office.
Oh, no. Not me.
Off to the ER at 11pm to have my cut glued together and splinted, along with a tetanus shot (with a little Diphtheria thrown in for good measure). And I looked so, uh hem, lovely in my green workout shirt, black shorts, and Cincinnati Bengals black and orange doo rag.
I have to say (and I have witnesses, mind you), I came out of that ER with an enormous finger that looked like it belonged on a Fraggle Rock character.
Swell.

Now that I've covered the finger, let's segway into the toes, shall we? (thanks, Miss Sniz and Big Doofus, for my new favorite word, segway).
So, Sunday morning, we arrive at church a bit early since my oldest was serving in the nursery first hour. As we pulled into the church lot, I noticed that my toes had very obvious chipped nail polish on them. I'm not overly fussy about such things, but this particular polish was a bold iridescent deep shade of purple.
What to do?
I realized I had the tiny bottle of polish in my purse so I did the only thing there was to be done. Propped my little piggies up on the dashboard and began a quick overcoat. I mean, it was early so who was going to see, right?

Right?

While I was feverishly polishing away, a car pulled in next to us.
"No big," I thought. Surely, no one would actually bother to take close notice of such a thing.

Right?

KNOCK! KNOCK!

Oh for crying out loud! Sure enough, a member of my church family found it funny enough ("funny" no doubt meaning odd, peculiar, TACKY!) that she actually knocked on the window and let me know that in fact, my piggy painting was cracking her up (and her expression told me that she was a bit taken back by my actions).
Alrighty then, busted!

Then, during communion, Reece put me through yet another "trip down the aisle" (because if you haven't read about our communion adventures with Reece, I assure you it's always a trip, so to speak). This time, the lovely Jones' were serving communion. The same Jones' who, just a week earlier, entrusted their dear little piggy to our care (sheesh, didn't plan on this being a piggy post). Their daughter is leaving for college and needed a new home for her sweet guinea pig, Edgar. So he now resides with us and will be our official "class pet" in homeschool this year.
Reece, seeing that Edgar's former family was handing out communion, began.

"Oh Mommy, LOOK! It's Edgar's old family."
(we're standing in line at this point)
"Shhh! I see. No talking in the line."
"Hahaha! That's funny, Mommy. She was just at our house and now she's gonna give me my bread. Isn't that funny, Mommy?"
"No, Reece. This is not the time to talk about funny. Now, shhhh!"

He quieted down (a feat for Reece) and I felt momentarily victorious.
That is, until he reached the front of the line.

"Thank you for giving us Edgar. He's a nice guinea pig!"

Sweet mother of all things inappropriate. We were in line to "Do this in memory of me," said Jesus.
And all my son can think about is thanking the server for a guinea pig.
Will I ever win the communion line battle with that child?
Stay tuned.

My Sunday would not have been complete without another incident involving our family pets. Why stop when we're on a roll, right? So, Olivia had just fed the dog and was doing a craft at the kitchen table. Next thing I knew, she shrieked so loudly that I nearly fell into the laundry basket I was sorting.

Me, still a bit off balance and slightly annoyed. "What? What are you screaming for,Olivia?"
"Ants! There are tiny red ants on my arm. Where did they come from?"
Where, indeed. I thought for a moment, when Hubs finally declared, "They must be in the dog food."
Let's all have a moment, shall we? EWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes. They were in the dog food for sure.
LOTS of them.
And it was a brand new bag.
And dog food is expensive.

I wasn't about to throw the whole bag away. So I immediately came up with a plan.
"We can't get the ants out of the bag," declared Hubs at my mere suggestion that the food would be salvaged.
"Oh. Yes. We. Can. Too." was my reply.
"But," (that scared look in his eyes whenever he thinks I'm about to launch one of my hairbrained schemes)...,"but," (as if it killed him to utter the next word),
"How?"

Next thing he knew, he found himself out on the driveway with me, an entire bag of dog food dumped on the blazing hot pavement.
"Spread it all out reeeeal good, honey. We'll wait a few minutes for some of the ants to begin to crawl away, then we'll collect the food again with dust pans."
There was the look again. The "She's clearly lost her mind and dragged me down with her" look. But it didn't stop me. I was NOT throwing out an entire bag of dog food. I was NOT letting the ants win.

I'm very happy to say my little plan worked well.
We collected the food and placed it in a plastic tub with a lid.
It is ant-free and I am the official rescuer of dog morsels.
And I saved us from an unncessary replacement purchase.
Even if it cost me my dignity.
Even if a few watchful neighbors mumbled it under their breath,...you know,....."Clampetts!"

Now if I could just figure out how to remove the huge dogfood-induced grease stain on the driveway, my efforts will reeeeally have been a complete success.
Uh hem!




Toni

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Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Can we get serious for a moment?


Ah! Sunday, glorious Sunday.
We headed off to church in the family van, all cleaned up and ready to worship with our very special church family (seriously, they are very special!)

I have to say, however, I'm not one who believes that you must look "churched up" in order to come to church.
On the contrary.
I'm not sure what you believe to be true about coming to church, but the fact is, God receives us just as we are.
Right where we're at in our lives.
Dressed up or messed up, ready or not.

It's a fact indeed. The bible says, in Romans 5:6-8, "You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. 8But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

If you look at that passage carefully and thoughtfully, you may well discover why I don't think outward appearance or inward readiness is necessary to come to church or to come to Christ. 1Samuel 16:7 reads, "For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, (B) but the LORD looks on the heart."
If you've felt God's call on your heart but have also felt that you are not "ready", not "churched up" enough in fine clothes, not worthy due to shame or sins that "couldn't possibly be forgiven", then consider the words of the Bible above.
They are not man's perspective.
They are God's perspective.

And while we're at it, "What's with the red letters?" you ask. It's more like what's IN the red letters. DCTalk recorded a beautiful song about the most important red letters of all, but the short answer is...LOVE!
There is incredible love in the red letters. Try this. Reread the scripture passage above and simply insert YOUR name in place of the words in red, and you will catch a glimpse of the love God has for you.


And so it is on my heart today to share this...
Come as you are!
He is ready to meet you just as you are, right where you're at.
I've said this in the past and it's so worth repeating. If there are 100 steps that stand between you and the God who loves you and desires your heart, He will descend 99 of those steps to meet you, if you will simply turn to face Him, taking only just one step toward Him.

Incredible change, hope, peace, forgiveness, grace, security and love await you.

Toni

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