My Kid's Favorite Songs

Here are my kid's favorite songs....can you guess which one is Kyle's, Charlotte's, Zach's, TJ's, and the one that Bud and Rachel had for their first dance as husband and wife????

An Update Post

It has been a while since I did an update post, so here goes....

Sewing Update:

I am taking stitches in the frame quilt every once in a while. My push for quilting has faded and I am not really getting much done. I need to get going on the Christmas gifts if I am ever to finish them. I plan to make a couple more skirts and jumpers for Charlotte in the near future. She has little faith in me....I asked her why she had not washed her jumper. She told me she was afraid it would fall apart in the wash!!

Family Update:

Sweetheart's mom did well with her hip replacement. She is in a rehab and HATES it. Sweetheart said he will be surprised if she lasts the week....she is suppose to stay for 2. We appreciate all your good thoughts and prayers for her!!

Homemaking Update:

I am afraid my entire household schedule has been turned upside down since school started. Plus, Sweetheart is home and "bored" and wants to "help". Do those quotation marks make me sound sarcastic?? Good. They were meant to. I did manage to get the cupboards stocked today. They were bare!!! Even the large pantry is full and the frig is cleaned out (thanks to Sweetheart) and restocked! I was even out of eggs....that NEVER happens!

Diet/Health Update:This may be the reason for my waining enthusiasm for quilting. I am borderline diabetic at this point (if not all the way) and really needed to take charge of my health. I have that surgery coming up and want need to get my act together. I am eating 5 small meals a day..one protein and one carb with veggies. No sugar or white starches, and only 1 whole wheat carb a day. I have been walking Ugly Betty (my treadmill) everyday this week and I have dropped 3.5 pounds since Saturday....not too shabby.

Kids & Homeschool Update:The kids are doing great. Charlotte has been wonderful the last week or more. Her anxiety has calmed WAY down and she is not acting out her trauma to any harmful degree. I am praising God for this and also for your prayers concerning her....don't stop!!

School is going well. We are reading The Captive Diary of Catherine Carey Logan during our read aloud time. The girls are just wide-eyed and opened mouth through each days chapters. They beg to keep going, but I always stop at a big cliffhanger!! Right now Catherine, age 13, who is being held captive by Indians in the year 1764, is sick with a fever and is certain she will not make it through the night. On top of that, she just found out that one of her captors is not Indian at all, and use to be "English" himself. He is her only hope in finding her 7 year old brother who was taken captive with her, but who is now missing......just as she is about to find out, we stopped for the day. Am I mean, or what????

Zach is not enjoying the story as much, but he is doing well in school and got all A's on his tests last week!!I promised him next time we would read a more "boy friendly" book.

Spiritual Update:God continues to grow me in ways that I was certain I had already grown enough in. I am in the midst of the "don't be a people pleaser" lesson. I have had to make some tough choices recently...do I please God or man? Of course, we say God!! Still, it is a lot harder than it sounds, and I find myself bartering with God...."For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ."
Galatians 1:10....that is all I will say on that!!!

The Simple Woman's Daybook

I thought I would do The Simple Woman's Daybook again. It has been awhile!

For today....October 26,2009

Outside my window....It is grey, cold, and wet.

I am thinking...I need to see my grandkids one day this week. They were gone last weekend and again next weekend.

I am thankful for...My home and family.

From the learning rooms...we took pre-tests in most of our subjects today. New spelling words and new read aloud for this week.

From the kitchen...Chicken tenders...breaded and fried for everyone else, but simmered in olive oil for me.

I am wearing...work out clothes

I am creating...Miniature quilts for Christmas gifts.

I am going...no where today!!

I am reading...Psalm 25.... is so it good!!!

I am pondering these words...."Shew me thy ways oh Lord, teach me thy paths...." Psalm 25 (read it all!!)

I am praying...for revival within myself!!

I am hearing...the little kids voices. I can make out "Let's ask mom."

Around the house...laundry needs to be done again!!

One of my favorite things...a hot cup of coffee and some quiet afternoon time with my Bible.

A few plans for the rest of the week:

Tuesday: Ladies Bible Study

Wednesday: Awanas

Thursday: Grocery Store

The rest of the week is open.

Here is picture for thought I am sharing...

Cold Air and Warm Bread

The leaves on the tree in our front yard are falling fast! We actually got a peek at the sun today. It has not shined for 3 full days. It is not planning on sticking around too long, as the clouds are moving in late this afternoon. Tuesday is the next time we may get to feel it's warmth. It is cold and windy. Charlotte and I went out for a walk and only made it a block down before turning around and coming home. Brrrrr....that wind actually bites!

Today is a home blessing day. Charlotte is working on laundry.
Sweetheart is cleaning carpet, Zach is helping with his laundry, and Kyle...well Kyle will deep clean his room, eventually, today. He is in the middle of a movie and promises to get it done when the movie is over.
I baked a couple loaves of whole wheat bread. I used honey and molasses in place of brown sugar to feed the yeast. The kids loved it. One was sliced, using my Amish bread slicer.... ....and one is cooling for the freezer.I make 1 pound loaves so the portions are smaller.
Nothing to show in the area of quilting. I have done little the past week and really need to get moving on the gifts I have planned for Christmas. I will share a project from a swap I did a couple of years ago. Some of you may remember this. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this quilt and swore I would make another one for me...of course I didn't. I really do plan to though.It is hand applique, hand quilted and I did a double cross hatch behind the basket of fall colored flowers. The effect of double cross hatching is one of my favorites!!I would like to make one for each season for my home.
That is it for now. I have done a couple of posts at The Offering of Thanksgiving this last week, but don't think I was neglecting this blog....just nothing to write about.
Have a blessed weekend!!!!

Have You Ever......

.....seen anything more adorable in your entire life?????

I had a great weekend with the grandkids. We all went to Sunday service and then Emerson took a nice nap. They went home about dinner time last night. I am so blessed that they live nearby. I pray that stays the same for a while.

It is going to be a very busy week. I am suppose to be out of the house 4 nights in a row. Tonight, Zach has a birthday party to attend. Tomorrow is Bible Study, and Wednesday Awanas. Thursday is the neighborhood Bunco. My Mother in love is having a hip replacement tomorrow, and Sweetheart will be there, so I plan to stay home from Bible Study. 4 nights out is WAY too much, and I am relieved to be able to skip something.

I finished our morning homeschool, and the kids are eating lunch. We are heading to Lemstone's to get the gift for the party tonight. I love that store. I lost my favorite CD....Newsboys Adoration. I can not find it ANYWHERE....I know I had it.....I remember putting it someplace "special"....I can not remember where "special" is!! I plan to just pick up a new one. It is worth it....I love that CD.....did I already mention that?

I posted on my other blog.....The Offering of Thanksgiving. The post was one I have been meditating on. I have had some really good times with God lately, and I am bursting at the seams, but I know this blog is a quilting/family blog and though I still plan to share some spiritual thoughts here, I will post my "deep" stuff over there for a while. There are no comments there....just a place for me to reflect and give thanks, though you are welcome to read if you wish.
That is all for now, except to share that I even got a pic of TJ this weekend....he was caught off guard!

Notice the quilts in the background. Yep...that is the pink and brown in the hoop. The latest miniature is still sitting just like you saw it last. It was impossible to get it marked and basted with Emerson here, so I decided to do another block on the albatross. The UGRR is sitting on the couch too, as I appliqued another flower into the border. Those 2 quilts are my top priorities after Christmas.....unless something else comes up!

Have a blessed Monday!!!

Convicting

The full version is WELL worth the watch and you can find it here.

Sweet Saturday

Things have calmed here over the past couple of days (thank you for your prayers)....God has placed a peace over my home that is so comforting. I was able to finish the skirts for Charlotte and I last week....or is that Charlotte and me....yes I think it is "me". *whatever* (See I have been around pre-teen girls all week!) I plan to go to Joann's tomorrow for some more denim prints....it is 50% off. Charlotte needs a few more skirts to get her through til Spring. Maybe a new jumper for Christmas, too.

Our Saturday has been sweet. Praise and Worship music played for much of the morning. Household chores were worked on, including laundry.I had a helper......Charlotte worked on a Christmas gift for her Daddy (a Bears blanket) and watched a couple of episodes of The Brady Bunch with Kyle. She can't believe Jan is my age!I worked on the last side of a miniature.It just needs a binding now!
The next one is being marked and basted, and is probably in the hoop as you are reading this. My grand kids are coming for supper and spending the night and we will all go to church in the morning...ALL 7 of us! Life is sweet!!!!!
"Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing: thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness;
To the end that my glory may sing praise to thee, and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give thanks unto thee for ever." Psalm 30:11-12

The Face of Trauma Revisited

Here is where I cling!!! It is that season....the one I dread. The one that brings with it a warfare so intense that I am left battle scarred through Thanksgiving. This year there is an increased intensity. I am not sure why, but it is solid evil I face. The neighborhood decorations are even at a higher level of evil....like I have never seen before.
My children are responding. Yes, even Zach is showing signs of the season. I can almost smell the brimstone and sulfur that must be carried on the feet of those principalities sent to attack my daughters mind. She is attacked. This season, to a higher degree than usual. I sit here and hear the words of a man we met several years ago. It was during this season when we met him....he did not know us or anyone who knew us. Just a simple man of God we were going to hear speak a revival message. He shook my 5 year old daughter's hand with a smile. His smile faded and as he looked at me, a sincere concern showed in his eyes. "Legions.", he said. "You are dealing with legions here." Was he saying my daughter is possessed? NO!! Heaven forbid!! He explained to me after the meeting that she is tormented by legions. Legions, according to Websters dictionary, means "A great number". It is not something I did not already know....just a conformation. So, this year, once again, I check my armour (Ephesians 6:10-18). My helmet of salvation is secure. My belt of truth is being tightened! My breastplate of righteousness is being repositioned and polished. My feet are shod in the preparation of the gospel. My shield of faith is being traded for a larger one (Did you know you can do that?). My Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, is being sharpened!
I am in battle, though the battle does not belong to me....

it belongs to the Lord!

Here is a re-post of Charlotte's halloween trauma, written the day before halloween 2007.

First I want to thank all of you who reached out with your comments and e-mails on my first installment of The Face Of Trauma. My heart swelled with the love that was shown through warm words and thoughts. I was amazed at the e-mails I received where some of you shared your own trauma. It helped me to see that Charlotte and other children like her have a chance to live wonderful lives in spite of their past hurts. I need to preface this post with a warning that the content is difficult to take. Please, do not let any children read this.

Tomorrow is October 31st. In some parts of the world, it already is. I grew up with the innocence of halloween. My sister and I dressed up and put on costumes and went door to door, trick or treating and collecting candy. During my trick or treating years, it was becoming the "trick" to put razor blades in apples and nails in brownies...back then you got alot of fruit and homemade goodies. Mom was so careful to check everything before we ate it. It should have been a sure sign that evil was strong on that night. As a teenager, my treat days were over, but I found myself playing halloween tricks. We would soap windows and throw eggs and TP trees. Did you know that, Mom? I married and had my boys and have lots of halloween pictures of them too. My feelings about halloween became different when I became a Christian, though I still took my kids out trick or treating, I passed out candy and specially designed tracts explaining the way to God. I wonder how many of those tracts got read?

Now... Let's talk about what halloween is to me now. I have knowledge of halloween that I never had before. Part of me wants to forget what I know and go back to just NOT knowing. In doing that, I would have to deny and make of no consequence some of my daughter's most horrific memories. I will tell you, I do not know what she experienced herself on the halloween when she was 3, but I can tell you she was involved in some pretty terrible things. Have you wondered why I call the vampire, the vampire? Well, it is not a comical little nickname I gave him. It is because he is a blood drinker. Charlotte's biological womb and vampire were/are open Satan worshippers. They belonged to a "coven" (my daughter's word) that is still in operation today. Let me share with you some of what I KNOW to be true about this coven (I probably know 10% of what goes on there). I do know that animals, primarily rabbits and squirrels are sacrificed and the blood is shared directly from the cavity of the animals body. Sometimes it is drained into a glass, but this coven I believe were hillbillies (not the nice kind). What do I classify a hillbilly? Someone who instead of washing a dinner plate will flip it upside down to eat off the back. No joke. My baby could not understand why we did not just turn the plate over and use it again! I am getting off track here.

Another kind of sacrifice in this particular coven is live human sacrifice. Here is how it goes. A baby is born at home. No record of birth, never a doctors visit. If the baby is a girl, she is safe (for that day), if the baby is a boy, he is taken to the coven meeting and is blood sacrificed in the name of Satan. How? Here are excerpts from a 4 year old girl, "He is naked and has a black belly button. He is cut from his neck to his private. He stops crying after he is cut. They take something out of him and everyone takes a bite. It is scary." (this was all reported...nothing could be done) I thank God I have my Zachary!!! I can not control the urge to get on my knees and pray for my daughter's mind. That the pictures in her head would be replaced with pictures of fields of flowers and sunsets.

I told you the baby girl, because she was a girl, was safe. Well, on halloween, when she grows a little bit, she will no longer be safe. Her body will be used, not as a blood sacrifice, but as an offering to pure evil. Men and older boy children will use her up til she is ripped not just in her body but in her soul. Her parents will be honored and put in a place of high esteem for their offering. These rituals take place all year long, but ALWAYS on halloween night. I am sorry to ruin your fun and you can still take your kids out trick or treating because in your mind this is not what it means to you, BUT, please understand it IS happening, right here in middle America. Pray for these children who will, tomorrow night, be used as an offering to the evil that their parents worship. I planned to share the history of Halloween and it's origin, but I found a post here that does it better than I ever could. I also invite you to visit a post where an awesome woman of God describes one of her own halloween nights.

My Charlotte, just like the awesome woman of God, has a very troubling time during the fall season. During the first several years here, Charlotte would make herself bleed from her nose. It was a form of self soothing and copying the rituals she was so involved in. She no longer practices that ritual, (as far as I know) and has gotten better each year. Still, when I see the trees clothed in beauty, she sees images of little animals being cut. When I see pumpkins and fall decorations, she sees flashes of a halloween night 7 years ago. Lift her up in prayer also on this day. She told me just the other day "My other parents gave me to the devil". It is all still there for her. In a couple of weeks she will begin to calm in her spirit and things will gradually get better. I ask you to pray for me also. My own heart holds bitterness at this time of year. If the sight of an Autumn tree causes flashbacks for Charlotte, you can imagine what halloween decorations do to her. I want to go to the home across the street and ask them to give up their own innocence of halloween as the massive decorations they put out every year, and the mock graveyard they create, causes turmoil in my daughter's spirit every time she goes outside. I know I have no right to do that, nor would they understand. They would probably decorate their yard with a "For Sale" sign if I shared this with them. I will share this with you though. Your halloween innocence, with your witch and vampire type decorations, may be causing trauma to a child OR an adult who suffered ritualistic abuse. I know your intent is all fun and you would NEVER knowingly do this, but you can not be held responsible for what you do not know. NOW you know.These posts are difficult for me to do, but I find them necessary. Charlotte knows I am sharing her trauma with you. She is happy that the truth is being exposed, though she does not read these posts, as much of the information came when she was 4. Her memories are fading, I want them to continue to go. Then why is this information so vital?

The only way to break the darkness is with the LIGHT!

I Joy Over Thee

My daughter, My little one, My under-shepherd, My dear friend: ---you are many things to Me, even as I am many things to you. My love for you is deep and tender. I know thy desire to please Me, and I am happy that it is so. How can I tell thee that though I desire holiness, and while I desire fruit in thy life, still My love for thee is in nowise contingent upon any attainment? My glory is involved in the way ye live. Eternal destinies are involved in the matters of thy holiness and thy faithfulness and thine obedience to my direction and will; but my love for thee is independent of these factors.

I love thee because you are my child. I love thee because I am your Father. I love thee with Calvary love. At great price have I redeemed thee:
this I did because I love thee. When I planned this, I foresaw thee lost in sin, and I loved thee and chose thee and set My heart upon thee.

Rather than struggling to comprehend the working of My sovereignty, accept this, and rejoice in it, and draw near to Me without spoiling the preciousness of our fellowship with any shadows of self-condemnation.

You are Mine, and I joy over thee. Discipline I reserve for the rebellious. The first step of repentance brings My mercy.

"Mercy there is great, and grace is free--
Pardon there is multiplied to thee,
There the burdened heart finds liberty at Calvary"

Let the peace of God rule in your heart and mind, and be filled with thanksgiving.


from Come Away My Beloved, by Frances J. Roberts

Charlotte's Jumper

I need to learn how to sew. Not something I want to do for enjoyment....I get enough of that in quilt making. No, it is necessity. It is impossible to find modest clothing in Charlotte's size. I hate to see her in pants all the time, and she feels good in a dress or skirt. A trip to Joann's to buy some 99 cent patterns (on sale), and some pretty corduroy and off I go.

It can't be too difficult. I got a pattern with no buttons, no zippers, and no sleeves. What else is left...it is a bag for cryin' out loud! I find this is a foreign land of tissue paper patterns, interfacing, and bias tape. There are no 1/4 inch seams, rulers, or rotary cutters, and instead of "fabric", I have "material".

Though the neck line was intimidating, I managed it with no seam ripping....in fact, I did not rip ONE single seam throughout the entire process! I kept the directions close by and followed each step carefully.Ta Da!!!And it lays flat too!!!!The arm holes (is that what they are called?) called for bias tape. That stuff is YUCK! I made my own from the left over fabric......uh, I mean material. It turned out ok....next time I will cut it a 1/2" smaller.I even did a slit!! That was tricky, too, but it turned out nice. And here is Charlotte, modeling her new jumper......The back.....(that is not a seam, but a crease in the fabric....er, material. I need to press that out.)Now to try a skirt! Not today though. Today I will spend my free time hand quilting.

Basket Case Is Finished

Basket Case is finished. (sorry for the poor pictures....it is a very overcast day) It has even been washed and dried, removing all the markings, and giving it that crinkle that makes a quilt. The texture is wonderful and I am amazed at how heavy it is.

I cut, made, machine attached, and hand sewed the binding ALL IN ONE DAY! It was a long day, but I put in the last hand, binding stitch at bedtime last night.Soon it will be handed over so it can go to it's new owner. It is always bittersweet to finish a big quilt. One one hand, it is a satisfying feeling and one that gives you a sense of accomplishment. On the other hand, if you are giving the quilt away, it is a sense of loss. Loss of a dear friend....something you have invested a piece of yourself into. Though I will say, giving a quilt is one of life's high points! There are many prayers in my quilts. A lot of the time, I pray as I quilt. Mostly for the person I am making the quilt for, but also for other situations. The Basket Case holds prayers for my mother-in-love, my own mom, my recent health issues, several bloggy and real-life friends, Sweetheart, my children and grandchildren....the list goes on.

On to new projects....or old ones, waiting in the wings!!!!