In The Refiner's Fire

One of the things about being a working outside of the home mom, is that life is always busy. There's schoolwork and work to be taken care of, there are things around the home to be done, there are children and a husband to love, there are church and religious commitments, there are things to do to take care of myself and then there's all the stuff I just plain want to do. These last few weeks have been extra crazy, sleep has been at a premium, and we've been wrestling with computer issues, car issues, added responsibilities, and a whole bunch of other stuff. Still, over the last few weeks, as I've felt the unconditional love of God and my husband in ways that I haven't for a long time, I've discovered something: The important things aren't always what they seem to be. I'm a product oriented person and I like to know that I'm getting things done. Crossing things off my to-do list makes me happy. Finishing a project puts a smile on my face. Having ...

I have really exciting news to report on my weight loss/exercise front: I've lost enough inches that the dress I want to wear on Easter actually fits!!!! Whoo hoo!!!!! I am so excited about that! Why? I made the dress for myself about 6 years ago - and wore it only about 4 times before I got pregnant with my twins. It's rather fancy - linen and long - and not necessarily for regular wear, so 4 times was actually pretty good. Anyway, I haven't been able to get back into it since! This winter, I tried it on again. I could actually get it zipped up, but I didn't dare breathe, cough, or even move. It matches my daughter's Easter Dress perfectly, so I wanted to wear it but have been afraid to try it on. Over the last few weeks I decided two things: 1) I was going to kick my workouts up a notch and really push myself in my exercise. 2) That I really was going to work on getting healthy once and for all, rather than giving it a half-hearted shot. I'm healthy again, I...

Boy, it's been a while since I've posted anything of real content here. My apologies for all the waiting. My computer is finally working, I'm slowly getting caught up on things for school that had gotten piled up with not having a computer for almost 2 weeks, not to mention I had the flu for 4 days, which didn't help. As for progress on things, I'm making progress on writing and paperwork for the degree. Not much progress on anything else, unfortunately. We have been so busy with John's internship, the kids things, and everything with school, that it's been hard to find time to work on my sewing/scrapbooking/other projects. Plus, school is a priority at least until the semester is done. I'm still trying to tweak the schedule into something that works for getting everything done. I do keep making small little progress on things - I have some birthday gifts that I've gotten done, some of the Mother's Day's gifts I had planned done, and I h...

Okay - I think I need to rethink my computer time so I can actually get a post up here once in a while! Thanks for being so patient with me! It's Holy Week this week and it means that I am busy, busy, busy with church activities, worship and getting our house all clean and tidy for Easter! Not to mention school (John and the kids have spring break this week but not me!), getting at least a few of the spring decorations out, getting a few things done with our yard and hopefully getting in to see the doctor about what I think might be a sinus infection. Whew! So, simple eating this week it is! We're back to a $20/wk grocery budget for a while. Long story, which I'll try to get up tomorrow, but in the meantime, $20/wk it is! They had some screaming deals this week, so we're good to go for a while, though I did completely run out of sugar today. Good thing it's on sale this week and I have a couple that I can double! So, what are we eating? Sunday, March 28: Breakfast: ...

Well, the new computer was driving me crazy yesterday - doing weird things and not being able to get anything done. Bad news when I really need the thing working properly to be able to get any work of any kind done for school. So, I did what every self-respecting wife would do: I called my hubby up at work and proceeded to whine! :) Sweetheart that he is, he did take some time to see what was going on, though he didn't find an actual fix until about 10:30pm last night. Can I tell you have appreciative I was? I was ready to send my brand new laptop back, it was driving me that crazy, and just the thought of not being able to have a computer that really works available for another 2-3 weeks had me in tears. This is not to tell you about my computer woes, but to demonstrate the wonderful dimensions of being in a loving marriage. My husband has so many strengths that I don't have - he's far more patient than I am, he's an incredible listener, he is way more technolog...

Well, my new laptop is here and it's up and running. Now, I just have to get all my stuff transferred from my old laptop to this one and figure out all the little quirks of this one. I think I need to play around a bit and get my desktop the way I like it and figure out how everything works. So, hopefully I can get to that today and be posting again tomorrow! I feel like I've been away for ages, so I'm glad to back (at least somewhat!). So, until tomorrow, have a wonderful day!

I'm experiencing technical difficulties with my computer. As in barely, functioning, limping along difficulties. Ugh. Soooo.... I have no idea how often I'm going to be able to post in the near future. Since I'm on a borrowed computer at the moment, I don't feel comfortable taking that time to non-essential things, such as blog. :P Just when you think things are starting to settle down...stuff like this happens. Anyway, thanks for sticking around and I'll be back as soon as I can! Lea

These last few weeks have been crazy busy and way stressful . I haven't hardly had time to wrap my head around things much less process anything or do anything that wasn't absolutely necessary. So blogging kind of fell by the wayside. I'd like to say that things are slowing down or working themselves out or something encouraging like that, but it doesn't look like it. At least for the time being. Good news? We finally hashed out our 2010 savings goals! Whoo hoo! Really. I hate not knowing what I need to do with my money and this kept getting shoved to the side with more important things happening and our collectively crazy schedules. We had a budget in place so we didn't feel it was THAT important. Then we got our tax return. Now what do we do? So, yesterday evening, after the kids were in bed, our other work was done and in spite of being tired and wanting to go to bed, we hashed out our savings goals for this year. Collectively we have about 10-12 but thes...

Oh, my goodness! Have I been MIA or what? I really didn't think it had been at least 2 whole weeks! Wow! I'll write more about that later - right now it's time for the weekly menu! After taking a good hard look at our budget this weekend, I'm hoping to keep the shopping to a minimum for a while. Currently my grocery list has potatoes, bagged salad and ketchup on it. We'll see where we're at after this week! Here's what we're eating: Sunday, March 7th: Brunch: Gingerbread Pancakes, Applesauce Dinner: Turkey Breast, Roasted Potatoes, Asparagus, and Melon Monday, March 8th: Breakfast: Oatmeal Dinner: Soft Shell Beef Tacos, Lettuce Salad, Orange Wedges Tuesday, March 9th: Breakfast: Oatmeal Dinner: Pan Fried Walleye, Rice, Steamed Corn, Melon-Grape-Orange Salad Wednesday, March 10th: Breakfast: Oatmeal Muffins, Orange Wedges Dinner: Easy Black Bean Soup, Cole Slaw, Homemade Bread, Grapes Thursday, March 11th: Breakfast: Oatmeal Dinner: Turkey Pot Pie, Cole S...