Long distance Bible study/accountability

I have really struggled for years to get into a routine of a quiet time each morning. There also just isn't time in my week, on top of homeschooling, cooking and cleaning, not to mention pregnancies and nursing baby's, to take part in a women's bible study group outside the home. That said, I have missed those things immensely.

Earlier this year two of my three sisters and I were all commiserating on these very points together and decided that we would do something about it. We decided that even though we live in three different states and two different time zones, that we would do a bible study together!

How would we be able to do a bible study, long distance, but together? I'm so glad you asked! We each do our study/prayer time as fits our schedules and then after we have completed it (or as soon as reasonably possible) we send an email to the other two sisters to share answers to study questions, insights and our prayer requests and praises. It has been SO great!

Currently we are studying John Piper's book "Don't Waste Your Life". There is a separate study guide you can buy (or download from here) to go along with the book. This has been the most challanging study we have done so far. Very deep, but not tons of work and reading to do each day.

Also, our third and youngest sister was able to join in when we started this study about a month ago. So, all four of us sisters are participating together in this! It is so cool! We are all in slightly different seasons of life (I'm the oldest child, by quite a lot, ahem, with 10 years separating me and my next sister, then 12 years between me and the next and 14 years between me and my youngest sister), living in different areas, involved in a wide variety of things, some of us homeschool, some public school, one has just had her first baby, etc. What is so cool is that with all these things that you might think would make it difficult to relate to each other at times, doing this bible study together each day, I feel, has really been drawing us closer and closer together. Our differences start to blur when we hear each day how we are struggling in the same ways and praying for each other and our families each day.

I have been asked by other women I know if they could join our "sister" bible study group. I have had to say "no". This is a closed group now. There are issues of trust and opening our hearts to each other that would be ruined by adding a stranger to our group. That said, there is nothing stopping anyone else from starting their own online/email bible study group.

You could form a group from people near and far, a group of ladies from you church, homeschool group, blogging friends, whatever! Just because it is email doesn't mean everyone has to live far away from each other. The point of doing it through email is for the sake of time, convenience and daily accountability.

We have gone through two other studies already this year. They have been awesome! We have stuck to books that offer either study questions within the book (sometimes at the back of the book offered as an option) or a separate study guide.

I don't think any of the three of us who did these studies can recommend these books highly enough! They were so great and God used them in such awesome ways in our lives, hearts, marriages, and mommy-ing! We started with "Lies Women Believe" by Nancy Leigh DeMoss. Then, we did "Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World" by Joanna Weaver. And, I already told you the study we are doing currently.

My encouragement to everyone is this: If you are not in a bible study group, but wish there was a way to fit one into your life, or if you have been struggling, like I was, to be consistent with a quiet time with the Lord and need accountability/encouragement there, find 2-3 other ladies (I think 4 is the max for an intimate group like this) who feel the same way you do (I bet they are easier to find than you would think!) and invite them to join you! Pick what you are going to study, set up your email addresses and choose your start date!

This would be a great way to start the new school year, coming up in about a month. You have time now to find your group, get your study materials and set your start date! You can never go wrong starting each day with the Lord and making Him a priority! Finding a way that makes it easier (I won't say easy) and with accountability and encouragement gives it a boost that will help it be lasting.

Anyone else attending?

The 14th Annual Oregon
Christian Home Education Conference
June 20 & 21, 2008
Oregon Convention Center
Portland, Oregon

For those of you who live in the northwest...will you be attending the home school conference this Friday and Saturday? If you are, be sure to stop by the Household of Faith Community Church booth in the exhibit hall between 11 am and 12 noon. Hubby and I will be at the booth during that time slot and would love to say "hi"!

(side note: attending this conference is how we decided to spend part of our "stimulus" check...as an investment that will bring dividends in our family and homeschooling)

If you live in the northwest and haven't heard about the conference yet, it's not too late to attend! For more information go here. Dr. Voddie Baucham is the keynote speaker....it's going to be great!

Hope to see some of you there!

Kim at Life In a Shoe has posted an excellent post about ectopic pregnancy and the sanctity of life. Check it out and be ready and open to possibly re-think what you have taken as standard thought in this area.

I posted a comment about my own experience with an ectopic pregnancy back when I was 20 years old and our first was 6 months old. If you scroll through the comments you'll find it. (yes, I know it is long comment...that's how you know it is MY comment! LOL!)

Revamping our church bag

We attend an age integrated church, which means there is no nursery, Sunday School classes or Children's Church. We have a worship service for 2+ hours in which the whole family sits, sings and listens to the sermon together. To help the younger children learn to sit through an hour long sermon we have a church bag we take each week, with "quiet" things for them to do. (even though there hands are being kept busy, their ears still hear the sermon)

**please note: The intention of this post is not to debate whether or not children should be allowed to have things to keep their hands busy during sermons or not. This post is to give ideas and encouragement to those of us who choose to do this. Please do not submit comments to debate this. **

Lately I had noticed that our church bag was getting out of control. Too many old bulletins, broken crayons, unsharpened pencils, etc. Bleh! I also didn't like how awkward it is for the kids to get into all the different compartments of the backpack during the sermon. Zippers are noisy too. So, I decided to get a new bag, streamline what we take each week, and rotate what goes in it every couple of months. Here are the results:

Our "old" church bag - pink backpack with too many pockets, zippers and too much space to lose things in!

Contents of old bag- what a mess! (click to enlarge)

New items for quiet play for the girls: Woodkins dolls by Pamela Drake. Our chiropractor has had one in his office for years and my girls always play with it. These dolls will ONLY be in the church bag and the girls are not allowed to play with them any other time.

Here is how the inside of the new church bag looks after putting the things I want to have in it in. Using a smaller bag (and no noisy zippers!) will keep us from over stuffing it and changing out items every couple of months. Inside it are: a few coloring books, package of twist up crayons, two lacing items, two magna doodles (we love these for church use), several small, plastic animals (dollar store) and the Woodkins.

New church bag: fresh, clean and even pretty!

I would love to hear of what you use in your church bag/quiet play bag, so be sure share with us in the comment box.

The perfect table for a BIG family!

~Originally posted 11/2005~

Our new, big, Amish table arrived just in time for Thanksgiving! With all 13 leaves in the table will seat 24! Yeah!




We can't say enough good things about this table and highly recommend it to any growing, large family or a family that likes to entertain a large group. We love being able to fit everyone and guests at the same table! The craftsmanship is superb! They package it oh so carefully for shipping too. You will not be disappointed!

If you ever decide to order from Amish Tables, please use my email (jerri_d@comcast.net) or name as a reference please!

Check this out!

One of my sisters has started a blog and is participating in the Bloggy Giveaways that are going on right now. You will so want to see what she is giving away! It is something that has to do with a long standing family tradition for celebrating and memorializing (is that a word?) birthdays. Check it out and enter to win! Mention you found her site from TOGG (Trophy of God's Grace) in your comment please. =)

Very old pic of me and my youngest on her first birthday.
She is now almost 2.5 and I don't have braces anymore, whew!

Pss...Jen, if you ever start an affiliate program, remember I am first on the list.

Fireproof Teaser Trailer: from the makers of Facing the Giants

Coming Fall 2008. Check out the website for the movie and read Kirk Cameron's bio information (click on "About Fireproof", then click on "Cast Bios"). How he got involved in this movie is an encouraging story, to me.

Fighting Discontent

There are a couple of things I have been trying to do consistently lately to help ME with spending and contentment. It has to do with temptation. Stores and marketing departments spends wads of money to TEMPT us. Tempt us to spend more than we should, more than we intended, more than we can afford. And, even if we don't succumb and buy something we are tempted by, we can feel discontent and brood over the "I wish I had enough money to buy ________". Enough already.

Here are two ways I am finding help me deal with this issue:

1. Costco. Since I can't go into Costco with blinders on, the best thing for ME is to simply go to Costco less. Of course, taking a list, sticking to it, all help too. I used to be better about this because our full size freezer was easy to access and I could fill it up on one Costco trip a month. Then, when we moved two years ago, there wasn't a good place for our freezer anymore. Oh, it was plugged in and occasionally held a few items, but it got harder and harder to get to. So, I stopped my once a month Costco trip and started going as often as once a week! Egads! Waste of time, waste of gasoline, and four times the temptation to add a couple "extra" things to the cart each week.

My darling husband recently found a way to rearrange the garage so that the freezer is accessible again. Yeah! Now, I can go back to once a month Costco shopping, stock the freezer with meat and chicken and avoid extra temptation. Of course, I still have to pretend I have blinders on when I go in, even once a month. You know, avoid everywhere but the food sections. lol. I tell you, those marketers are good... they make you have to go past all the extra stuff before you can get to the food.

2. Catalogs. Ugh. Am I the only one who doesn't appreciate a mailbox full of catalogs? Half the time I'm not interested in what they are selling, so those are easy to take directly from the mailbox to the paper recycling bin. But, it is that other half... the ones I do occasionally make a purchase from online...that have items that do tempt me. What's a targeted consumer to do?

And as if it isn't enough that catalogs tempt me, there are ones that come in the mail that tempt my kids too! And I'm not talking just at Christmas time. My all time favorite to dislike when the kids get to it? Birthday Express! The kids can devour that catalog and dream and plan birthdays a year in advance. And it all leads to discontented hearts because I'm not buying anything from that catalog. What's a mother to do?

For the last couple of months I have been taking ALL the catalogs straight to the paper recycling bin, even if it is the Eddie Bauer catalog. I don't let the kids look at any of the catalogs that come in the mail, if I can help it. I am trying to get better at this. Avoiding temptation is so much easier than dealing with discontented hearts!

Then today I found out about Catalog Choice! Though it is a good exercise in character for me to keep dumping catalogs without looking at them, it would be even better if they never sullied my mailbox in the first place (not to mention the waste of paper, ink, postage, etc.). Catalog Choice is a free service that allows you to opt out of receiving catalogs. Sign up, browse through all the catalogs that are already linked to this service, find the one(s) you don't want to receive anymore and hopefully within a couple of months your mailbox will be catalog free (your postal delivery person will thank you too!). If you are still receiving catalogs after you opted out, it is just another click of a button to report this.

It is best if you have the catalog(s) in front of you when you are opting out, so that they can include your customer number (even if you've never bought anything from them, you have this number!) in the opt out request. You don't have to include this number and I'm pretty sure even without that number they can find you and remove you from their list. That is what I did, since I don't have any catalogs around.

It does take a few minutes to browse through the whole list of catalogs. If you know exactly which ones you receive you can go directly to those. I discovered that there are a lot more catalogs I am receiving than I realized. I found 29 that I was really sure of. TWENTY-NINE!!! There are a few more that go to my husband, so I need to set up an account for him so that we can opt out of those too. There are also a few I'm not sure I receive anymore. So, I'll look at the catalog titles when they come in the mail and if I haven't opted out on any of them yet, I can add them to my list. I can also add back in the customer account numbers at any time.

1 Timothy6:6-12
Now there is great gain in godliness with contentment, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. But as for you,O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith.

This is a passage I need to mediate on as I shop, browse a catalog, browse the internet, etc. I have a long way to go. I have found over the years that discontentment has many, many faces. Just when I think I have conquered discontentment, I find that I haven't really conquered it, just perhaps one form of it and maybe only for that day!

What have you found helps you in this area? Share your tips in the comments section and after there are several I will make a post with them so we all can learn from each other.

No parking, no lines, shop in your pj's

One of the ways I have found that really helps with shopping for this mother of twelve is online shopping. Saves on gasoline, time in traffic, those parking nightmares that will start in less than a week, and I don't even have to put on make-up! Amazon is by far my first and favorite choice whenever I shop online. Almost always the lowest price and free shipping (for orders $25 and over in most cases). What's not to like?

On "Black Friday" Amazon will be offering hourly deals from 6am to 6pm PST along with thousands of products on sale for a limited time. Also, customers will get gift wrapping for $.99 per item. Click here for a direct link to their Black Friday specials.

They don't have the specials listed yet, so bookmark the page and check back, especially next Friday!


P.S. Yes, I am an Amazon affiliate...though I've never made a dime at it, lol. Affiliates can't make a commission off their own sales, rats! If you aren't already shopping through an associate I would be honored if you would use my link for your Amazon shopping. It doesn't change your price in anyway whether you shop through an affiliate or not. With all this sitting around being sick earning a little toward a new book to read would be great!

ClearPlay- can't say enough good about it!

Click here to see three brand new short video's about ClearPlay and how it works. This link also takes you to a special sale price of $59.99, which includes a free trial membership.

The three short video's are titled:

1. How ClearPlay Works
2.ClearPlay Movies
3.ClearPlay Demo

A ClearPlay unit would make a great Christmas gift for the family, if you don't already have one.

Answering your questions about Gleanings

How old do you think a child has to be to make this worth the trip? What did you do with your littlest one while working?

Because we had a baby who still takes 2 long naps a day, I was really unable to do much of what the rest of our group was doing. I helped in the kitchen one day and went to watch everyone work on the trail mix line and take pictures. At first this was a little discouraging to me, but God gave me a great peace that my "season" is still to care for small children/babies and really, I was so thankful to just be able to be there with our whole family at the same time! After chapel I would take baby back to where we were staying and nap her. We would meet up with everyone else at lunch time at the dining hall and about the time everyone was heading back to work, she would be going down for a nap again. I was able to be "home support", keeping the laundry going, cleaning the house we were staying in, washing dishes, etc. One day I kept some of the other families toddlers with me and played with them so their moms could work. I also had times of great worship, singing and ready my bible, which is a rare thing during the middle of the day in my "normal" life. =)

Our three year old was able to work if she was with daddy, helping with packaging raisins, etc. Since daddy also did concrete work a couple of days, she stayed with me and the baby during those times. Our five year old was fine to work with packaging raisins with other adults supervising. Every child is different, so age doesn't always mean anything. I don't think they ever worked more than 2.5 hours at a stretch before there was either the lunch break or a snack break.

Gleanings is a great whole family short term mission experience in the spring, but....

Just to clarify, during the summer Gleanings isn't a "whole family" kind of destination. To run the peach processing plant they prefer 13 y.o.'s and older. This is fast paced and lots of fast moving machinery going on. It is also very hot in the summer time in Sultana. Even so, I do know some families at our church who have taken their whole families, but it was more like mom stayed with the younger kids doing other things while the older kids and dad worked. Because it takes approx. 80 workers to run the peach line and with what housing is available, there isn't a lot of room for families to stay there during the summer. There are dorms with bunks as well as the hotel type rooms that are used during the summer. I think the suggested donation per day is $10 in the summer, per person.

There is different work to do at Gleanings in all the different seasons. Summer is peaches, Fall is usually clean up/repair from the summer (new this fall, starting in Oct., Gleanings will have a Discipleship Training School starting, which is a 3 month basic training for YWAM. You can read more about what a DTS is here ) In the winter is more repair and prepare for the spring and summer months. Whenever there are enough volunteers and donated product the soup mix plant or the trail mix line can run. They get a lot of senior groups who come through during these times of year when the work is relatively easy and the temperatures are mild. During the spring they like to have groups up to 35 people each week (working Monday - Friday usually, but some folks do a day or two as they are on their way from one place to another. There are even motor home hook-ups available!)to run the soup plant and/or trail mix and raisin lines. And, there are always buckets to be washed when the sun is out to dry them!

There are so many ways to help support this ministry. Praying for the staff (all YWAM staff raise their own support - there are no paid positions), product to be donated, shipments to get through customs without corrupt governments interfering, and that the hearts of those receiving this food will also be receptive to the Gospel message that is presented with it. Financial support is always needed and is tax deductible. You can contribute to the ministry as a whole or help support a staff family (there are three families on staff right now that homeschool, which is really cool!). You'd be amazed at how little money makes such a big difference in these "state side" missionaries lives (though it is state side to us, this is foreign land to many on staff: some are from Canada, the Philippines and Switzerland!). Not only does it provide for their physical needs it encourages them spiritually! There is also the quilt making projects. Quilt tops can be put together and sent to Gleanings or you can work on quilts while you are at Gleanings.

You can even do donations online here. And, for all the information about Gleanings, go here. Be sure to check out the monthly newsletters.

Keep the questions coming!

There and back again: a large family tale

Our trip to Gleanings For The Hungry in Sultana, CA was a complete success! All the planning and preparation done ahead of time made it a very pleasant road trip and our time working at Gleanings was awesome!

First, the road trip. Though we aimed to be out the door at 3 am, it was closer to 3:30 am by the time we were backing out the driveway. Which turned out okay, because we were able to do what others consider a 14 hour trip in 12.5 hours. We ate all our meals in the car while Super Daddy Driver drove and used the potty only when we stopped for gasoline.

One thing I learned on this trip was that most gasoline stations only have one toilet per gender. That means trying to get 12 people to the potty takes longer than it takes to gas up our 33 gallon 15 passenger van. We could save some time if we went to a gas station next to a fast food place and used the fast food bathrooms instead, as they usually have at least two toilets per bathroom. In fact on the way home at one gas stop one of my older boys did just that. He took one look at the line for the mens room and quickly turned around and headed to the Wendy's next door. Smart kid.

After our time at Gleanings we went to So. California to visit my sister and her family (You know who you are!). It was just another 4 hours south from Gleanings, but it was too short of a visit! We got there Saturday afternoon and left Monday morning. We drove about half the way home and stayed at a Residence Inn (to house all of us we needed 2 suites - older boys in one, mom, dad and the little girls in the other). I can't say enough good about this hotel chain (and I spent three nights at one in another state last month for a sisters weekend with my three sisters. The staff were very accommodating. Check in is usually 3 pm and check out at noon. Well, we got in early and checked to see if it was possible our room was ready, at 11:15 AM! And, it was! They let us right in! Then, we had late flights out and asked for a 3 pm check out and they didn't bat an eye. No problem! That is the kind of service I love. At the hotel my husband and I go to locally whenever we can get a night or two away, they are total scrooges about a late check out. As if the occupants of one room checking out more than an hour late is really going to make a difference! Sorry, but I really like to get a whole 24 hours out of the price of a hotel room. But, I digress....) The beds were great, the rooms spacious for a large family to move around in, a full kitchen and an incredibly delicious ,with lots and lots of choices, hot breakfast (buffet style, but hot and ready!). The awesome breakfast was a great start to our last day on the road, though it may have delayed us a little (how many helpings can we cram in before leaving? I mean, it's included in the price of the room, so let's get our moneys worth! lol!). We had hoped to be home by dinner time that night, but we got in later than that. Never fear, I had plenty of things to munch on. The kids did fine, just the driver was getting weary.

Gleanings: The whole reason for the road trip was so that our family could spend a week of volunteer service. The spring is the best time to go as a family or bring a group of families as the work is easier and almost all ages can participate. The accommodations are hotel like rooms, and three meals and two snacks are served a day from the dining hall. We "led" a group from our church of 9 adults and 26 children (some were teenagers). I think we made a new record for the most children in a group! We mostly worked on the trail mix line and repackaging raisins. Some of the dads worked on pouring concrete projects. We all took turns working in the kitchen before and after meals too.


We also worked one day in the Soup Plant and several days working on washing donated dirty buckets (they are used in the summer to pack the dried peaches in for shipping - not only is the dried peaches a blessing to the people all over the world who receive them, but the buckets are an additional blessing! These dirty, used buckets were destined for the dump, but have been donated instead and volunteers clean them up all year to have enough for the summer dried fruit crop.)

Some in our group were able to work in the quilting room. Donated fabric, batting and quit tops (specifically made by a church group and sent to Gleanings) came together to finish two quilts. Quilts get sent with containers that go to COLD climate countries.

The playground was a huge hit with our group. Like everything at Gleanings, the equipment was donated and volunteers put it in. Gleanings is an extremely cost effective ministry: the land, equipment, buildings, machines, etc. have all been donated - they have no debt and no loans. Even staying there is a donation: you can pay whatever you feel the Lord leading you to pay, though $5.00 a day per person is a guideline for the springtime stays. (that includes food and lodging)

A few of our children in front of a wall in the dining hall that lists all the different countries around the world that receive food from Gleanings. (click to enlarge)

Our oldest three boys working on cleaning up some pallets of buckets that had one bucket with a bad seal and so during the winter some yucky bugs had a cozy home and food supply. They had to find the bad bucket, and then clean up the buggy yuckiness that was all over the surrounding buckets. Then, the stacked buckets and pallet have to be wrapped in shrink wrap again before they can be placed in shipping containers and go overseas.

Time serving together as a family and with other families as well as getting to know the staff and hearing so many incredible stories of God's provision made for an incredible 6 days! One of my favorite parts of each day was chapel. After breakfast each morning there was an hour of worship, sharing, devotional and praying together of the staff and the volunteers. So many incredible stories of what God has done and is doing through this ministry. Letters were read written by children from foreign lands thanking the people at Gleanings that would send such good wonderful food for them to eat. The stories can break your heart, and then praise our loving God for giving a man a vision to take the leftovers, the surplus of the peach growing area of California and use it to feed people and share the gospel with them.

All together, we:

• Cleaned about 1,300 food buckets.

• Packaged 240 pounds raisins (85 boxes).

• Produced 4,560 bags trail mix (240 boxes).

• Packaged 148,000 servings of soup mix (26 barrels).

• Helped to pour two truckloads of concrete for a slab.

• Moved and stacked pallets.

• Completed work on two quilts.

• Took turns preparing meals in the commercial kitchen and cleaning the dining hall.

It was good to serve the Lord at Gleanings! We give this a 10 out of 10 as an awesome short term family friendly mission trip.

Stay tuned for the next installment: What's next?

The Junior Bunk Bed

Way back in January I posted about our JBB -" Junior Bunk Bed" . Several of you have asked for the dimensions of the mattress and here I am, FINALLY, getting out a tape measure and posting the info for ya.

The mattress' are: 30 inches wide, 60 inches long and 6 inches deep. We had them made from a high density foam and had a "ticking" over it (cloth cover, much like a regular mattress you can buy at the store).

It pays to call around as the place we got ours from actually cost slightly less than some of the other places we called, but included the ticking and no where else even offered that as an option.

This size easily accommodates Queen size sheets (fitted and flat) and blankets, quilts, etc. by cutting the Queen size item in half. The fitted sheets require a little finesse (I made square-ish corners from the raw edge, but you could put elastic into it if you want) but if you have a sewing machine and can sew a straight stitch you can do this.

Amazing Grace - A Movie You Must See

Excellent, excellent movie. Hubby and I went to see it Sunday night. I want to see it again already. It is so rich: cast, sets, script. It is a visual delight, especially if you enjoy this era of British history. Go. See. It.

Oh, and the web site for the movie even has a study guide you can use with your older kids before they see it, which will help them enjoy the movie even more! I plan to use them with my older kids and then go see it, again, with them. A homeschooling moms dream come true.

Low carb "way of eating" (WOE) or What do you eat?

In response to questions on our family blog about our weight loss and switching to a low carb lifestyle I have decided to bring some of that discussion over to my homemaking blog because cooking and recipes are better suited here. I also am hoping by sharing what we are doing and the recipes I have found to work for us, will not only inspire some of you, but also inspire/motivate me to keep working on finding new recipes and sticking with low carb for the long haul.

Breakfast:
This is the easiest low carb meal of the day for us . We eat 2 eggs and bacon (2-4 pieces) every day. Eggs can be made different ways; scrambled, with cheese, with the bacon mixed in, with some peppers, with garlic, with a touch of Da Vinci sugar free syrups (like their pancake syrup), add cream to your eggs and some flavoring (my friend Karen adds the sugar free DV Toasted Marshmallow syrup) and make a thin batter and cook them up like crepes. When I get a chance I make low carb muffins to go with our breakfast. At first I made these mostly from ground flax seed (I grind my own - more on that in the next post). Flax seed does make a nice muffin, really. My problem is either my taste buds got burned out on them or I'm just burned out on eating muffins every morning. I have been playing around with using Almond Meal, Hazelnut Meal and psyllium with the flax seed. Then, there is figuring out adding flavor to the muffins. Mostly I use extracts (vanilla, almond, maple, etc.) and the DV syrup flavors. We really like making a blueberry muffin with the DV blueberry syrup, and add just a few blueberry's to each muffin.

The other part of breakfast is the morning beverage. Tea is easy, just add some cream (milk and half and half have milk sugar/carbs in them and cream, i.e. heavy whipping cream, is almost all fat/no carbs, but be sure to read the label) and I use just a couple of drops of Sweetzfree. Hubby likes just plain black coffee, but I'm a "foo-foo/Starbucks" type coffee person. I have found that the Torani White Chocolate Sugar Free Sauce makes a pretty decent White Chocolate Mocha. Just add two tablespoons of the sauce, two drops of Sweetzfree and cream to your liking. Yum.

One thing to remember anytime you have any carbs is that you have to have protein with them. So, my faux white chocolate mocha is at breakfast, with all the protein in the eggs and bacon. Why? Protein raises blood sugar levels much more slowly than carbs or even low carbs alone do.

Next posts:
Muffin recipes
Fast and easy way to make great tasting bacon for two, twelve or twenty!

Recommendations to share!

Here are some of my favorite items I have purchased in the last year:

Bravo to MamaK for recommending Signing Time! My kids LOVE it! And, they are learning soooo much!


Someone else recommended the Leap Frop DVD's, sorry, can't remember who, but they have been awesome! My little ones have learned all the letters and sounds so quickly and easily! We had been watching the purple dinosaur video's for too many years, and the kids knew all the songs, but they weren't learning anything worthwhile.


Best marriage book we have ever read is Love and Respect by Emerson Eggerichs. I got the book on CD for my husband so he could "listen" to the book while communting to and from work and I got the hardbound for me. It is the most awesome, helpful book we have ever read on marriage. Debbi Pearl's book, Created To Be His Helpmeet, is my second favorite, but it is written to women, not couples. Love and Respect is so practical and eye opening! This book will make bad marriages better and good marriages great! Okay, it isn't a magic pill, you will still have to work at your marriage, but you'll have the information you need, and understand why your spouse reacts the way he/she does at times. Reading this book is the best investment you can make for your marriage!


If you use the links I have supplied to make a purchase I will earn a few pennies toward a Amazon gift certificate (which also make great gifts!). Amazon also has free shipping for any purchases over $25 (on most items). I love being able to shop at home and not have to pay for shipping!

If anyone wants any other book/DVD/etc. recommendations let me know in the comment box.

Easy File for Homeschoolers

Several weeks ago I won a Homeschool Filing Kit by EasyFile from the Biblical Womanhood blog. Cool , huh?

Here is a bit of info about it from EasyFiles website:
"EasyFile has a set of colorful labels and tabs developed specifically to keep homeschool papers and records organized and accessible. By creating a "home" for the myriad of school papers you deal with on a daily basis you can ensure assignments, tests, administrative records, lesson plans, budgets, curriculum materials, etc. will have a place where they "belong" - leaving you with a more orderly home and less time wasted shuffling paper."

I have worked on getting my EasyFile system put together, slowly but surely. This isn't the time of year I would normally work on such a project, ( I would usually do something of this nature at the beginning of or in preparation for a new school year). Nevertheless, seeing that I won it and agreed to write a review of it, I dove in.

Things I really like:
Having my papers all in one place, and yet it is portable, (I put mine in a plastic file box similar to the picture above), so I can take it to other parts of the house if I need/want to.

Having such a great selection of folder labels that are already made up to help me figure out everything I could put into the filing system. Almost everything you can think of is already printed up for you! (there are extra blank labels too you can fill in)

This is a great motivator to get all my homeschooling stuff organized. Everything from end-of-the-year testing results put into a file for each individual child (I had been storing them altogether by year, which wasn't very efficient), to all those loose "I might use them someday" papers that I never remember to use because I can't find them (and actually file them by subject! woo hoo!).

I think this system would be really helpful to moms who find themselves organizationally challenged, too. This system makes it easy for anyone to get organized.

One Caution: Be sure to get the 1/3 cut folders and hanging files. I bought mine online and the folders I got were right, but the hanging files, though I thought had said they were 1/3, were not. Oh well. Still works.

One bonus side effect: Since I had several files in our "family" file drawers that had homeschooling papers in them, I also started working on our family files using a similar method ( file tabs on one side, folder tabs on another). What I have gotten done looks great! I also was able to pull out and shred (with the help of my 5 y.o. son - he loves to help shred papers!) a LOT of really old paperwork! I hope to have a day of teaching all the kids about filing and hand them the stack of bills and papers I have saved up to file (ugh!) and have them sort them while I re-do the files I already have for those items. Then, we can tuck them into their newly organized folders and thrill at the sight of a very neat and easy to find things in, file drawer! Okay, the kids may not thrill at the sight, but I will! If you don't already have a home file system, EasyFile has one of those too.