Had mostly a wonderful Weekend How bout you?

We had an absolutely wonderful weekend enjoying hubbys companionship and had a hike with some great friends! It was so nice...then we got home and little princess spiked a high fever yesterday and so here we are heading into another week with a sick someone in the house. My poor baby she has a very sore throat and has run over 102 for 24 hours this morning we have it down to 100.5 so thats a blessing.  Will be monitoring her today and see where this goes hopefully away! Little prince will be attending swim lessons with our dear friends thankfully she can give him a ride today.  I am blessed with really wonderful dear friends.  I cannot thank God enough for all of my friends. IRL or Webland :)    Anyway, Just wanted to post a little note to update you all on how things were going around here.  I have been a bit behind on my routines since, well, lets see....months lol...  It seems to go along with the Fibromyalgia I have developed Chronic Fatigue Syndrome officially. I told my doctor..."I refuse to have that!" she laughed at me she is a very wonderful faithful woman so she giggled at my comment.  I am very tired however most days to the point my body feels heavy and cant seem to function but I am working on a whole foods way of eating and supplementing with raw vitamins which seems to already be helping. I recently found a book at goodwill (love that place) that was written by Jordin Rubin called The Maker's Diet (see my side bar for a link if interested) and I am going to work on following it closely. He recovered from Chron's disease after nearly dying. It says diet in the title but I am calling it my new healthy eating instead of diet. My goal isnt to lose weight (although it will be a welcome addition to the plan LOL) but instead to get healthy, truly healthy and to feel better.  Thats all.  So I will keep you posted. So far I am feeling a bit better its only been a few days. I am not being as strict as I could be since I tend to not keep up with something if I start out full force all at once instead I am slowly making changes and shopping differently as I go and as we replace things in the house I am working towards chemical free, all organics.  People that struggle with health as I have can really benefit from the change to whole foods, and chemical reductions in their homes. I havent in all honesty ever paid that much attention to these things thinking it almost a bit on the crazy side for many years but now am realizing how much stuff has really be chemically or fake produced I used to think if we could buy it in the store it was real stuff...not so much anymore. Anyway we shall see how this works and how I feel I will blog updates from time to time. Well little princess is calling me so off I go hope and pray you all have a wonderful day and you are well...God Bless

Bronchitis battle

Well everyone sorry I have been away, I am hoping very soon to implement my new schedule. I just finished reading Managers of their Homes by Teri Maxwell I love it and cant wait. Currently I am praying about how our schedule should go, chores that the kids need to handle and so on.  I have been battleing illness now for close to a month or more it seems. I had a routine checkin with my Doctor and she said my lungs were wheezing and I have Bronchitis..oh joy thats why I havent gotten well yet. So hopefully now I will get well and my kiddos too they have both had it Little princess is fighting an ear infection and Little Prince has the same crud I have only its not full blown Bronchitis his lungs are clear Praise God. Hubby was so sick he ended up home sleeping for 2 days which is so rare I can count the times it has happened on one hand!  Anyway thats a brief update on the happenings around here I am working on an If/Then Consequence chart for diligence with our chores and other character behaviours I am noticing popping up lately...  If you use one leave me a message and let me know if you purchased or made your own?  Where did you locate the scriptures you use to reinforce the behavior you prefer and so on.  Hubby and I discussed this and throught the weekend will be putting it together and take effect with it as soon as we lay it out and discuss the expectations with the kids.  Blessings to all of you Take care
Tiff

HaPpY NeW YeAR!!!

Happy happy new year everyone! May the Lord Bless this New Year with greatness, peace, love and Joy this year. I am going to be working on making my blog pretty and exciting soon as well as I have some new things to blog about and my priorities for 2011. God Bless you all and "see" ya soon!

Snowy Saturday

Well its been a rough few weeks around here since our best friend(doggy) past away but we are getting back to normal. I went threw a bit of depression recently however I figured out I had accidentally been forgetting my medication for the fibro which has an effect on my emotions as it is also an anti-depressant. Now that we are back on track with that it is better however I am having a very difficult time with the holiday season this year. I don't really know why I just am. Normally this is my favorite time of year and we have plenty of snow for a white christmas(more than enough actually!) We currently have almost 2 feet I think. we received another 6 inches so far overnight up to now and it is still coming down hard giving us currently about 2 feet. I will have to go measure for sure soon :) The kids enjoy knowing exactly how much we have lol. I think I may put some lights on our porch today so that may help my spirits. Also today I am going to put up some curtain holders (the light duty white ones) they were inexpensive and a way to put up some curtains without thumb tacks that we have been using currently lol. I would love pretty wood curtain rods however those can be fairly spendy even if you do thrifty and use closet rods we will upgrade to those slowly later for now I am going to spray paint these metal ones with a copper hammered look spray paint and call it good :) actually for today I am going to just put them up to hold in the heat I will worry about painting them later:) Then the rest of the day will be spent working on laundry and the kitchen. Both have been neglected due to illness of myself and both the kids this whole week. I am finally feeling a little better still coughing but better. The kids are finally feeling better too Praise God. Well I better get with it. I am also going to be working on the home management binder soon and getting things back in order spiritually and in the home. Things are going to be scaled back that are done out of the home and focusing in on Christ and our Relationship with Him who can carry us when we are struggling if we will but turn to Him for help. Blessings to all of you at this time of year and praying you have a wonderful CHRISTmas...
In Him,
Tiffany

Its looking a lot like christmas

Wow we have a lot of snow here. 15 inches and more coming! It has been cold cold but with a nice warm fire going in the house it has been so nice. It makes me sad though since so many are without heat or houses. I try to do what we can but we cant save everyone all by ourselves. I am a sappy type who would love to just gather everyone up and bring them home with me to be warm and safe but that just wont work out for me so I pray. I pray for direction on how God would use me to help people and I pray for their saftey and health in these winter months. The children and I will be going down to the local soup kitchen in the coming weeks to volunteer and donate childrens clothing and some can goods. Oddly enough this was not what I planned to post but what God placed on my heart today so there you go lol.
Today we are going to go down to the Christmas Bazaar in town and then the lighted parade is tonight then My children are going to some dear friends house to spend the night with their best friends while hubby and I have a date night! yay it has been a long time. spring I believe. so excited! We are going to grab some burgers in town then come home to snuggle and watch a movie. Sounds exciting doesnt it lol.. well for me it is:) Anyway I hope you all have a great Saturday. I know times are tight for all of us but lets think of some way we can help those in need is the season of giving. God will bless us for our efforts even if it is just praying for those in need if that is all you can do. Most times this is all I can do there is nothing to small in God's eyes when you are wholeheartedly trying to help those around you. Blessings all...

Tired but so Thankful

Today I am exhausted and extremely sore. However through that I am oh so thankful..why you ask because yesterday I determined through my extreme pain to go ahead and work on a log pile we needed to get put inside before it was buried in the snow this weekend and my husband has had to work his days off so will only have Sunday off this week. Why does that make me thankful? Well you see I mentioned my goal on to my friends on my social page and one of my Church members sent her wonderful husband over here to help me with the big logs and stacking which was such a huge blessing then to top it all off she came by with Potato soup for dinner as she thought I would be too sore after all the logging :) She was oh so right and we are so so blessed to have such a wonderful "family". We were also able to bless some dear friends with wood as well and it feels great that even though I am hurting physically and may not contribute to the church in some of the more physical opportunities right now that are available I am still able to help others! So I guess my point of this post is to encourage that we lean on God and our friends when we do need it (instead of hibernating and not asking for help like I know we all try sometimes or at least I sure do) and look for ways to give cheerfully no matter what we ourselves are dealing with because It helps the physical pain so much more then I could have imagined to 1. know I am not alone (even though the enemy tries to make me feel that way sometimes) and 2. be happy that I was able to help someone who needed it even though I myself hurt so much! Joy helps pain but I know how hard that is in the midst of deep pain I am there and I have been there so stay strong my friends that are struggling, persevere and ye shall be blessed! Have a great day I am off to clean the house and get ready for a friend to come play with my son while the mom and I chat then tomorrow more kids coming to play with our kids and spend the night then Church on Sunday and small group time sunday night really looking forward to that we have missed 2 weeks trying to get the logs put up before winter really hits. Now its done! Yay it feels so good! Hopefully that will help my hubby feel a bit more relaxed this weekend too he is so tired! He works at a tire store and when the snow hits they work 11-12 hours a day and work their mid week day off. We love the extra $ it brings in and that is such a blessing but it sure takes alot out of him physically so I am just praying for strenght and endurance for him and a restful day sunday with our Church family to rejuvinate his body.

Hello World!!

Hi everyone so sorry I have not been better about posting!~ I have been struggling with the pain and headaches and trying to keep up around here. We are hoping to get the pain under control and that the headaches will go with it. Just trying to keep our head above water around here. I will try and do better about posting more meaningful posts very soon! In the mean time I covet your prayers for health restoration or just God's overwhelming presence in the pain. I know he is using it for his Glory and I just have to hang on and Pray.
Growing in Him
Tiff

Essentials For Life by Marcia Ford (a book review for booksneeze)

Follow the link below to get your own copy of this great little book!
Essentials for Life: Your Back-to-Basics Guide to What Matters Most

I love books it just seems I have not had as much reading time in the summer months.

I recieved a free copy of the book reviewed here in compensation for my review that is all that has been provided from the publisher.

Essentials for Life by Marcia Ford


I really enjoyed this book. It is not a novel type which is nice for short bouts of reading time. Its like a little instruction guide when your getting off kilter with your bible study or in your daily walk. When you are in need of Inspiration on digging into scriptures deeper or getting Closer to God it is a great resource. I found the brief 2 page inspirations and instructions to be a great way to dig deeper into my daily bible study. This book would be especially helpful for new believers and those returning to Christ to boost thier walk with the Lord and get them jumpstarted with some great short reminders and instruction. Overall I really like the book and will keep it on my bible study shelf to reference back to when I need to.


To my regular readers I will return soon with more regular postings... we have had some illnesses here and a sick piggy is taking extra time right now. School begins offically ( I know I already said that however the last 2 weeks we have done light schoolwork) Heavy scheduling has been completed and we are ready to hit it hard this coming week. Will post some more soon on all that. Have a blessed Lords Day everyone

11 Years ago Today

11 years ago today my first born wonderful beautiful awesome little Prince entered the world! Today we celebrate his birthday with a cake, icecream a couple friends and Sprinklers under the trampoline :) Going to be a most wonderful day! I will write more soon from my previous post I had planned on getting a ton of things done last week while the kiddos were gone however I ended up staying with my parents also as Little Princess' anxieties kept me with her last week at my parents house. She needed me and so did my mom. It was wonderful to hang out and just chat with my mom I havent had much of a chance to do that in the last couple years life has been crazy for both of us. They built their dream barn last year and they are working on their house that is being built this summer and into next summer should be finished by sept of next year and my mom is really looking forward to that. It was a wonderful week but I now am a bit behind around here. I still need to finish the painting in the living room and get the finalization on the homeschool plans written up by the end of next week. Some dear friends are getting Married this weekend and Little princess is one of the flower girls so this week is wedding details after the birthday details :) busy busy never a dull moment at the end of summer is there lol! have a blessed day all I am off to finish the cake making and get the house ready. Blessings to you all!

Fabulous friday

Hi all! Hope you are well... Today we are just going to keep things plugging along here. My wonderful husband revamped a room in the shop to make my crafting room! Yay so now all my fabric and craft drawers that were taking up ALOT of space in our bedroom can be moved out to the shop as well as this means when I get time to work on a project I can for a few min and not have to drag stuff out and put it all back out of the way! Yay I may actually get the gift scrapbooks worked on for xmas presents this year! woohoo! also going to work on another dress for myself and little princess soon. This coming week I will be kidless :( as they are going to grandma and papa's for a week. while I will miss them I have a few projects that I am going to tackle while I dont have to get distracted during. Going to finish painting the main living room ( I painted when we moved in Jan however the paint was not brown enough it turned out rather grey) I had purchased 5 gallons at home depot of what normally cost $100 but it was mixed wrong color or something not sure it was off white which was great and it only cost $15!!! so i did that and bought a quart of chocolate brown thinking that would make it the right milk chocolate color...well it turned purpley gray lol! so I have bought an inexpensive gallon of dark coppery brown and it came out a beautiful tan! I will post pictures when I am finished luckily we had only done one coat whne we moved so we still had most of the bucket left! Also going to finish my homeschool planning and post on our choices for the year :) Going to get the homeschool supply area all organized and gone through since I wont have kiddos saying "mom can I play with that" as I go through things makes it hard to organize when things keep getting moved around by others doesnt it lol... ok off I go today is just keep on top of things and get ready to drop kids off. Tomorrow we are going to spend the day at the local Museum with one of our cousins that will be fun! ok have a blessed day all!

MT WASHMORE TACKLED!!!!

I did it! yesterday even with intense pain in my back and all the way down my leg I got all the laundry folded! I had several loads that had backed up for a while now (clean but not folded) and a couple new loads washed yesterday. I was not feeling good due to pain so I was down most the day but instead of doing nothing while I sat here (as I normally would have done when I hurt this bad) I folded slowly and carefully taking breaks as I needed and got it all done by the end of the day. I cleaned up the kitchen before the day began and the house is starting to look normal again. today Hubby is off work so we will work together on a few things (he is awesome about helping when my pain flares up like this knowing I will do more when it subsides) and then we will enjoy some kind of fun with the kids maybe go to the lake and swim or something. Here's hoping you all have an awesome day! I am babystepping my way to a clean organized house! Yay! Next week the kids will be at their grandparents for the week so I am going to get the homeschool planning finalized and the corner organized as well as finish a couple household projects that never get finished it seems. Praying the pain will subside by then and I can tackle lots. God Bless all...tata...

Not much going on today

Hi all! Pretty quiet day around here... just yard work and housework catching up with things from the weekend. I have been struggling lately with a lot of pain which has not helped with the housework at all but hopefully it will calm down very soon. Been also struggling with a lot of spiritual struggles lately not sure why but just felt really blah about things. Could be all the pain and the fact that I was not taking care of my daily feeding with my bible study. Today I read the entire book of Hebrews and it really gave me a jump start. Praying that this helps my energy and drive a bit and going to focus in on the Lord more as I struggle through this spiritual canyon and make it to the other side. Thank you for praying for me if you will as We are all sisters who need eachother Right?!! Have a blessed day all,
T

Friday already?? where did the week go lol...

I cant believe it is Friday already... This week I havent gotten a ton done but i did get on top of some things. The kitchen got a good cleaning my bathroom got organized and we made some cookies...all and all a good week lol. Today We are going to get the laundry all folded (i have been procrastinating on this! that is the one thing I struggle with I feel so good when it is all done and put away yet I let it pile up. It is all clean but not put away when will I learn lol.) I also need to reoganize my side of the closet but may do that tomorrow. Thinking we may go play in the water later today at the lake but not 100% sure we may just play in the sprinklers :) Well I am off to get going on the day...suppose I should eat somethin! Have a blessed day all

Hello world

Hi all, its been a very long time...Sorry about that. Between business of kids activities at the end of the school term in June then I was very ill and then the Fibro was really acting up and I just had not an ounce of energy left to do much with writing wise. Part of me was not sure if I would blog again for a while however I have checked in on all of you so even though I wasnt writing I was stopping in on all of your blogs :) I was up early this morning so finally had some energy and time to drop in on here. So much is going on around here between the garden, we currently have 3 pigs we are feeding and last month little princess had a big accident, she was attacked by a dog and ended up in the ER with 8 stitches to her buttock groin area. It was very scary/tramatic and she is still dealing with dog fear every morning just to go outside our own home. This didnt happen here and it was not one of our dogs however just going outside with our pooches gives her fear daily it has been a rough month. However I am on a new med for the Fibro and it is helping with energy and overall mood too so that is a bonus. I have been on it before but it was with a mix of tons of other meds and I didnt do well now it is just one med I am dealing with and trying to exercise and eat right to get a handle on this once and for all.
This weekend we are going to enjoy a river float, church on sunday and then a barbeque with my life group after service which will be fun! Looking forward to a fun relaxin weekend with my wonderful family. Still trying to get back on a schedule around her hopefully in the next 2 weeks we will have that handled and have it tweaked to the right timing for us to fit things in. I am considering taking the kids camping close to home here for maybe a week or two we shall see...and then getting the final things ordered for school work this year little Prince will be in 6th grade studies this year and little princess will be doing K/1st grade work thoughout the year. I am looking forward to it we did school with both of them last year but I was way more flexible with little princess and her "want" to do school this year its for real and I am thinking how to do both of them they are a bit too far apart to really combine much so it will take some time to get the schedule revamped when we get going to see how it will work with both of them. Well I am off to water the garden and feed the animals hope you have a wonderful weekend and I will try to post more often...Hugs,
T

I have not fallen from the Earth (I promise)

LOL...hi all just a quick post letting you know I will be returning to more regular posts in a week or so I by not paying close enough attention to detail LOL signed my kids up for 2 activities while one was still finishing (ya know I probably wouldnt change a thing though we dont do this often so it is a small sacrifice for a short term and the kids are having a blast) so this is the last Day for little princess' ballet and then this week is their first soccer games and we had a homeschool swim lesson session that runs daily for 2 weeks. Thank goodness for crock pots lol. And last night I was very blessed as a friend had made dinner for the church's youth group and there were leftovers which she had me pick up for our dinner! Yay! I am very excited for June to get here! We are going to take our first real family vacation in 3 years (I say real as it is not camping for hunting season lol) and we are going to go tent camping with some dear friends! I cant wait. We will be having fun in the water, catfishing, and just enjoying eachothers company. Our kids are very similar in age and the best of friends. The whole family is very excited! Well I better run gotta get rolling for the busyness begins now!

I did survive...LOL

Candy commented asking If I survived and I realized I needed to post an update LOL..
I am dealing with a good deal of pain recently and had some xray's that showed the vertabrae above my surgery is now pinching my disc somewhat moderately. But I am not gonna let this get me down! I will Survive with the Grace of God however I have had to focus to get the things done that are the basics around here which has meant I forget to do some of the fun things like Update my blog LOL... Right now I am in the midst of pre-planning for next year and looking at curriculum that may or may not work and deciding if I want to try a package such as My Father's World or just use some of Ambleside Online with some of the other things I do around here.... decisions decisions lol... anyway Also a new job opportunity may/or may not present itself to wonderful hubby please be in prayer for that as he could really use it It is with the same company but would relieve so much stress off of his bad knee that we could really use that to come through for him. We wont really know anything on this for quite some time as the position isnt officially open yet and may not come open until sometime between now and 12 months from now. It would mean travel sometimes being gone for a whole week from home however I just ask that if this is God's plan for hubby then this will work and the feelings I have toward the being gone part will be replaced with Joy and peace with Jesus by my side. I thank you for praying with me over Hubby and my pain. Take care my sisters in Christ I will try and update again soon.... I still am reading blogs even when I dont update making sure you are all doing well! Hugs...

Survival day

Hi all,
Today I am just trying to un-bury myself here in the house, after a few fun filled days as a family we let the house go...so today I dig out and regroup for the rest of the week. I am feeling ok the pain management is going well with minimal doses of medication. I hope and pray for further relief and renewed strength/energy however I am going to keep living in the midst of pain. I refuse to give up and give in. I enjoyed the weekend being active. We took a walk up a butte and what a beautiful view we had it took us longer than normal to get up the hill I had to take it slow even resorting to walking backwards at times lol... going uphill backwards seemed to help the nerve pain a bit(kinda hard to see where I am goin but what a beautiful view I had of where we had just been~! lol...so nothing spectacular happening today I made a big list of what to do today however am revising it and going to go room by room and tidy up...so if I finish tomorrow that will be ok with me! Have a blessed day all!

Catchup day

Hi there! We had an awesome weekend a childhood friend of my husbands came to visit us for the weekend (our weekend was Sunday Monday) so after church on Sunday we went out to what we call the desert and explored for a while Pics at bottom of post then Monday we went for a drive to show him some other lakes and things around here. Today is my monday and I have much to do. I have to clean up the house and later have some errands to run. Enjoy your day! It is snowing here! Spring is coming but today it is very cold.

Feeling much better today:)

Today is going to be a Better day~! I am going to accomplish things actually last night I had a bout of energy and did get much accomplished Praise God. Today we have done a good deal of reading already(studying Jamestown) and the kids just did some outside paper airplane flying :) now they are having some late breakfast..they really wanted to head outside so I let them wait till now for breakfast so we shall have brunch and then move on with our day. I am going to get some bread made and cookies possibly but definitely bread and then get the house in shape...I say that but as I look around it really is not that bad lol. just need a good vacuuming from the woodstove mess and put away some clothes keep laundry going today and then enjoy some nice weather outside today looks to be 60 but then we will have rain starting tonight for a couple days which may mean snow here you just never know they said no snow just rain this weekend and we woke to 1 inch here at our house. I think the town 30 miles from here where the news comes from has a completely different radar system that doesnt show us acurately lol! Anyway I am off to have a great day! God Bless

Motivation/energy where have you gone??

Oiy today I have just felt zapped of all energy, I did some things this morning but aside from that have not accomplished much all day. Sad to admit but I have those days do you? I am now going to get up and go clean up the kitchen and make dinner. Have no idea what to make. I have to say when I was planning out our meals and sticking to my schedule my days seemed much better. I shall get back on track. Praise God I have gotten back to craving my daily time wiht the Lord now I just need to get my schedule back in order and make it work for us. I have so much I want to accomplish but when I start I tend to feel overwhelmed and just dont get much done at all this has happened alot since moving into the new house. I must get better about that. Ok off to tackle the kitchen and then dinner tomorrow is a new day I think I will map out what I CAN get done tomorrow and just try to bring about order...I did manage to get all the backed up laundry that was clean folded and put away yesterday and today have been working on washing that needs to be done. That reminds me I need to switch loads. God bless you all and have a great night! See ya soon!