Organizing

Awhile ago I decided it would be convenient to have all our product manuals in these handy little files (pardon the dust). First of all, if you are ever feeling like you don't have enough stuff, go look thru your product manuals! We have so many for things like our camera, video camera, the trampoline, sweeper, blenders, laptop, desktop, every appliance we have bought and I could go on). Anyway, it didn't take me long to realize these big, bulky expandable files are not east to store. So I saw something on pinterest I thought I would try.

I took all those goofy manuals and put them in page protectors which went into a notebook. My only annoyances were getting those huge manuals into the page protectors and the flimsy notebooks I got at the dollar tree do not support 16 of them in one book very well.

My finished product. There are extra page protectors ready to be filled as well. And now to do something with those expandable files because they are in the same place they were while they were being used.
P.S. I know I put my pages in the book upside down. Once I peel those stickers off, no one will ever know.

If only I could get the whole house this neat and organized. Sigh, maybe one day...

Worth it

You should know by now that in Bible Club we are going straight thru the Bible, learning the "stories" of Adam and Eve, Cain and Able, Noah, etc. But what I love about our lessons is that those stories are just the backdrop to the most amazing story of God's never ending love for us and his plan to save man from their sin since the very beginning.
You should also know that I am taking 4 neighbor kids with us every week and I have just recently started bringing them to Sunday School.
What you don't know is the background of these kids. They all have pretty rough lives compared to us. There are sister who live with their grandparents because their parents are not fit to raise them. The other girl has 2 younger sisters and they all have different dads. One of them doesn't even know who her dad is. Their mom has been in jail recently. I'm sure their are lots of different men in their lives and drugs.
The boy, I think his life is pretty normal. There are no drugs in the house, that I know of. Tonight he asked if he could eat dinner with us after we got home. I told him we already ate, he said he hadn't eaten anything. They are all always hungry when I see them.
So tonight we were very deep into the fact that God had to destroy everyone because of their wickedness. They understood that no one but Noah and his family loved God and wanted to obey Him. One of the sisters started crying because she misses her dad. He lied to their mamaw so she wasn't letting him sleep there tonight. Awhile later one of the other girls started crying because she misses her dad and won't get to see him until this summer. I really didn't know what to say to these kids. They crave attention and love. I just explained to them that people on earth will let us down. Not everyone loves us or will always be there for us but that there is one person who always will. They seemed to recover pretty quickly.
Tonight I realized that I am not only bringing all these kids with me because they spend a lot of time with my kids. I want to be the solid in these kids' lives. I want to show them the unconditional love of someone who will never leave them for drugs or anything. I want them to know that someone cares. I want them to remember these years when they are older and find themselves falling into the same situations their parents have fallen into.
It isn't easy. I never leave church on Wed nights feeling like I have just made a difference. My throat and head usually hurt. I am generally frustrated at their misbehaving. But getting to tell these kids every single week that God's plan from the beginning of time has been to save us from our sins, it makes everything worth it.

Backroads

Do you know what I love? I love that Brad and I have almost been together half of our lives. We are getting ready to celebrate our 14 year dating anniversary, which is the day before Brad turns the big 3-0! All the amazing memories I have are with him. No one else. Yes I have great memories from childhood and friendships but my AMAZING memories...they are with him and him alone.
Rewind at least 12 years. We are young, dating, have no kids and no worries. We went four-wheeler riding a lot back then. This night in particular, there were 3 or 4 four-wheelers in our group. We were planning on going on a longer than usual ride but not to unfamiliar places. There was nothing fishy going on; just a bunch of kids out riding around, seriously causing no trouble. Somewhere along the way, the leader, which was not Brad this time, took a wrong turn. Now, I don't know how many of you have spent much time driving back roads, gravel roads, no lined roads but everything kinda looks the same. So it took awhile, a loooong while, to realize we didn't know where we were. The options were to back track the hour we had already gone or just keep riding til we came out somewhere. If there is one thing that never changes about the back roads, it's that they all come out somewhere! Eventually the gravel road we were on turned into a paved road, then a paved road with lines, then the main road! We had rode our four-wheelers a good 50 miles into a town that takes well over half an hour to get to by car, on the main road. Obviously we had to go back home so we had to find our way back on the same roads we had just traveled. Let's just say it was way past my curfew when we finally got back home!
Fast-forward to tonight...We went to a stranger's house out in the country to pick up a pool table/ping pong table/ air hockey table for the church. On the way home, Brad decided to take a different road home. An hour later, we had no idea where we were, it was dark as could be outside and we had no cell service. Since all back roads come out somewhere, against my better judgement, he kept on driving until we came out! Guess where we ended up? The same place we ended up on those four-wheelers over 10 years ago! By the time we knew where we were, I was sick to my stomach from the twists, turns, ups and downs of those roads! And to make it worse, since Brad knew we had another half an hour trip ahead of us, he did not go slow that part of the trip. I had to close my eyes and lean my head back because I just knew we were going into the hillside, over the embankment or something! But we made it. It only took us 3 hours to do something that should have taken max an hour and a half!
Memories! I love making them with him but I am done with the country roads for awhile!