Day 3 & Gregory E. Lang

We are in day 3 here at Jake Hunter's studio.  It is going SO WELL.  I have never enjoyed my time in the studio so much.  I felt freedom to worship while I was recording my parts yesterday.  Right now I am listening to Josh patch in his guitar parts.  The second band will be here to pick up the rest of the songs on Friday.  I am soooo excited for the CD to come out.  It is the REAL THING!

Anyway, on to other news.  Several months ago I was approached by Gregory E. Lang, a New York Times Best Selling Author and Photographer.  He asked if I'd be willing to submit an article for his upcoming book, Mom's Little Angel, and a picture for his photography blog.  I felt so honored.  So, of course I had to submit a picture and he posted it today along with a link to my blog.  How cool is that!  I did submit a short story, we'll see what happens with that=)

Guess What We're Up To?

We are in the studio again.  That's right, the next 2 weeks we will be in the studio recording our second CD.  We're so excited.  Today was our first day and it went GREAT.  The foundation of the first 4 songs are done and we'll be at it again early tomorrow morning.  

Bugs and Choo-choo Trains

Zeke turned 2 today!! 

We had a birthday weekend with fireworks on Friday (I'll post about that later), small group cookout Saturday and B-day party on Sunday. Not quite the birthday week that our pastor and his family have, but pretty close=)

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We have been traveling so much that we have had to cancel small group for SEVERAL weeks in a row.  And being the 4th of July weekend and all ,AND because we were going through small group withdrawals, we held a cookout at our house for everyone on Saturday.  Wow, one thing I am not is a "Party Diva".  A little exhausting for my introverted self, but so much fun=)  We had cars lined up all the way down the culdesac.

Then today, Zeke's actual birthday, we all came home after church and took naps.  Then we woke up and had breakfast for dinner.  Zeke had a triple-decker pancake birthday cake with a Thomas The Train theme.  Some of his favorite presents were his Thomas The Train cars, a bug-catcher and a cool big boy sleeping bag.  What a GREAT day!!

Grocery Challenge UPDATE

This week I went to the store and racked up!  If you don't know what I'm doing you can click HERE to read about my $25 grocery challenge.

This week I spent $33.75

That leaves me $28.11 for the rest of the month.

I'm gonna be cutting it close!=)

*I must say that we have had company ALL weekend, a birthday party and a small group cookout on this budget too.  That's gotta count for something, huh?

Thou Shalt Not Misplace My Things

I am nearing the end of "Feminine Appeal" by Caroline Mahaney, an excellent book by the way.  If you want to read more about the things I've learned from the book go HERE.  Today I read about judging others.  I know, I know...we should love the sinner, not the sin.  But seriously, I have seen something here that I never really thought of as sin before.

Does this sound familiar to you?

"One of the posts connecting the backyard fence is down.  Those neighborhood kids must have done it.  I hate it when they jump over our fence!"  

"I can't find my sunscreen.  Why can't Zeke stay out of the cabinet!"

"Josh, would you please put the adaptor to the camera AWAY after you use it?"

I'm terrible at this.  Everything is always someone else's fault.  I mean, I am organization queen and I never misplace ANYthing!  Yeah right.  

Here's what REALLY happened.

Josh said, "No baby, the post probably just got warped by the sun so it fell out of one of the slots.  Here, let's go fix it."

10 min. after searching for the sunscreen I finally find it saying "Oh yeah, I forgot I stuck it in this bag before we left."

After frantically looking for the camera adaptor to post a much needed picture to my blog I look down and it's actually already connected to my computer.

I think the worst thing about it is that many times I forget, or don't even realize that I need to ask forgiveness for wrongly judging everyone else and thinking of myself as blameless!

I've got a lot to work on=)

Freebies On Craigs List/Bad Idea

Okay, I guess I set myself up for this but I still could NOT believe this.  I had good intentions though=)

I totally cannot believe all the FREE stuff I have been getting by playing the CVS game.  If you have no idea what I'm talking about you can read THIS LINK to learn more!  There is no way we'd be able to use all the stuff that we get so I wanted to start giving some of it away.  I mean, who on earth needs 11 toothpastes or 4 deoderants=)  I called our church but there is nowhere to store it for their helping hands ministry so I decided to put some gift bags together and post it under the FREE stuff on Craig's List.

Not even 1 hour after posting the add I had an inbox full on inquiries.  Here are just a couple of them...

"hi, I really need those items!!! where can I pick them up? pls email me back!!! thanks"

I thought, cool I'll let her come get them.  That was BEFORE she e-mailed me back and said,

"can I pls get 20.00 too? I don't have much gas but I really need it my monthly is on...."

Uh, I pretty much told her that I wasn't giving away $, just a bag of things I thought could help somebody out.  To which she replied, "thanks but, no thanks".

Nice!

Then, a few other messages wanted me to ship it to them.  Hmmm...

Here's one more.  Sketchy at BEST...

"I do not need them but just wanted to stop by and say 'good job'.  It is important to care about others."  Yikes.

I think I'll find another venue to share by "blessings"=)

Challenge

I'm always up for a good challenge and I just read about one right up my alley HERE.  Rebekah, from The Coupon Bin, has challenged us to a $25/person grocery budget for the month of July and I'm definitely up for the challenge.  I just learned about it so I'm a little behind now but here is where I stand so far.  

We have 3 adults and 2 children in our household this month, since Josh's sister is living with us this summer.  This equals $125 of edible food for the whole month of July.

I had already gotten my groceries for the week before hearing about this challenge and I spent $63.14 worth of edible stuff.  OUCH!  I better be a smart shopper=)

That means I only have $61.86 for the rest of the month.  Can I do it? At least I'm willing to try.

Are you up for the challenge?  Leave a comment if you're up for the challenge and I'll add you to the links=)  I'll be keeping you posted with my track record throughout the month.

Just One More Reason

This is just one more reason why our decision to allow Areyna to go to preschool next year will be so beneficial.  You can read about the other reasons HERE.  Zeke can't even leave her side long enough for her to go to the bathroom=)  Neither of them mind this dependency on each other and I love it!  I just know it will be good for ALL of us=)

It Never Happened

It's been a week now since we got back from our Hungary trip and "IT" still hasn't happened.  The dreaded "transition time".  You know, after you've been gone or the schedule is different and you start getting back into the regular swing of things.  My kids are the worst!  So I was completely expecting melt-down city when Josh and I got back to my parents house.  But it NEVER happened.  Wow!  My parents did exactly what we do.  They continued to make them say please and thank you, they continued to have room time everyday and the days went on as usual, just in a different house and with a few added fun activities like parks, zoos, etc.  It helped that Josh and I were there for a couple of days before and after the big transitions, so it went more smoothly.  Another reason is because my mom can tolerate their whining just about as much as I can, which is NOT AT ALL=)  This was a special time for all of us.  Josh and I had a GREAT time in Hungary without the kids and my parents got to spend some good, quality, alone time with Rainy and Zeke for the first time since we live so far away from each other.  My parents support us 100% of the time in more ways than one, but this was such a practical way to help us continue to "DO" and "GO" as the Lord leads.  Thanks mom and dad!!