Whitney’s baby Shower, we had a lots of fun watching Whitney open lots of PINK!!
Christmas with the Parsons and Christmas with the Dodges both Christmas’ were before East Asia this year which was nice but super busy!!!
Bon voyage headed to the other side of the world! Latterly!!! Please be praying for us as we are on the mission field!
Let see all things I skipped this month…Secret Church with David Platt Oh so good, I love this intense time of teaching and learning.
We are getting ready for East Asia, it was looking a little rough with the money situation but God will provide we are confident!!
We finally presented at First Baptist Miamisburg about last year’s trip, fun and praying for God to provide for this year!
We did a Thanksgiving/Christmas all-in-one with Granny before she headed to FL.
Canceled our vacation but were able to spend time with my husband.
May have had a rough time coping with our lack of funding but God is faithful and my husband is patient.
One of our Elders found out he may have cancer and some other complications…Please pray for Big Rick.
Shopping with the sisters, and lots of Thanksgiving!!
Enjoyed the Muppets
Happy Birthday Bella
I really enjoy my Non Coffee dates with Ali, it has been super great getting to know her better!!
Fall Retreat was a much needed rest and the woods made it very relaxing, I will say that cooking chicken in the oven then transporting in a cooler to continue cooking on the grill makes for a very interesting morning! But the chicken and the potatoes were so yummy!
Happy Birthday Ben!
Not the best day very little turn out but God is still in control and we are so thankful for that!!
Here is a brief recap of what happended this month I am sure I missed a lot…
More Freshman Dinners = lots of crazy kids and a good deal of fun!!
Pray for Bentley’s Family! There was a car acciedent in the Trailer part and a 2 year old boy was hit and killed by a car. Very sad and hard to deal with.
Holiday Weekend and Never ending pasta! Both are wonderful things!!!
SBH Visit and Networking
Happy Birthday Josh and We are Constituted! The Bridge is constituted that is.
School Starts for Me, and I am not sure I am ready for a year of classes!
Women’s Retreat and Dinner Date and Women’s Night
Today I start a journey back to where I should be. I refuse to stand stagnant on the sidewalk of life, and let others pass me by. Often I feel like I live my life alone, with very little support. If you know me then you know that I am constantly on the go…not always by choice but sometimes. We live 50 minutes from our church and I work 90 minutes from our home (in the other direction) my support at work is well work related. My support at home is in a ministry where I am the daughter of a leader. And at our church I am often the woman sitting next to the pastor. I have found myself avoiding conversations because frankly the “how’s it going” kind of makes me want to scream. If you really want to know then ask but sadly I know you don’t based on your response. Please don’t aim to make a point to dwell on how hard my life must be or how “I can’t imagine how you do it” Let me tell you a secrete I don’t do it...God does. There is no way that I am able to do what I do. I don’t say that to boast I say that with complete humility in the fact that God is God and I am not. Then by removing myself from conversation I become more of a shadow than a part of the community or family. It is easier to be strong on the outside if no one sees the pain on the inside. Tragic I know. When did the Church become a place of fronts and masks…well we are all human…and sadly we feel that in its self is justification enough. But we may be human but when we are born of the Spirit we have a new identity in Christ and that is what our standard should be. So let’s say good bye to all put together me and allow others to see my pain but more than that let them see Jesus in and through me. I should not have my focus on my pain it should be on his sacrifice. So rather the sun is shining or not be sure to say Good Morning to the Son!
I frustrate myself I know what I am supposed to do and how I should think but I allow the world to cloud my judgment and change my reaction to everything. I seek encouragement and so often I get pity. It is hard to focus on the Good when you are constantly reminded of the not so Good! Yes my/our situation is not perfect…far from our idea of perfect. But for some reason God has handed us this life. And though I do not understand it I have to give him praise for what he has given and how he has blessed us. We have a home, one we do not have to pay rent on, plus Granny is only there half of the time. I have a job that pays the bills not always sure how but it does. And with all of it God makes it work…it can be challenging but who said life was gonna be easy? So thank you Lord for your gifts of goodness and for your never ending love. Teach me to trust and to focus on the blessings even if they are the challenges!
Well we started the day off with our FREE Chick-fl-ia breakfast, Yum. After that we headed to a comic book store…which was not open so we circled back to Goodwill first, then back to the comic book store where JP met a friend who loves Marvel Vs too…well he might like it more since he played the pro circuit. Crazy! So they chatted for a bit and then we headed to target and lunch. After lunch we were pretty much on time to head to the party. JP thought that the party was in Columbus but it was notJ. So we headed to the church and once we had parked he noticed Erika’s car and I thought the whole thing was blown but it was not! He was just completely confused! But it was lots of fun we had a great turn out and tons of superheroes!! Thanks guys you are so great!!
We celebrated Mark, Dustin, Jamey and Tracy’s Birthdays today at Mom’s it was a nice relaxing party! Much needed after this past week.
Uptown concert and Ultimate Frisbee…we had a pretty big game going. Lots of new students playing…we have a great feeling about this year!
Each year I am still amazed by the craziness that surround move in and school starting. You would think I would be used to it by now...well I am not!
We had our health screening today at work; I was pretty excited since I HDL (good Cholesterol) had went up a decent amount! Then after work I headed over to Dawns to help her sand those lovely walls. Oh so much dust!
With the students arriving my/our schedules have been all mixed up. There was no Clubhouse tonight so Josh and I were both home it is really quite odd. Welcome to August I suppose.
So I headed to Huber to pick up my husband! So very glad he is home at last…well for a few days before things get crazy with school starting.
Another auction but we were not nearly as successful as last time…you win some and loose some…maybe next time will be better!
So on my week to myself I scheduled a date with an old friend. Jess (not my cousin). I had dinner with her, her husband and their daughter; it is amazing how even after a few years of not seeing each other it is so easy to reconnect! God has really blessed them and I am so happy for them!
So with all the craziness with people leaving my cousin Jess decided to come and visit…she is from Alaska so it is kind of a far trip. It was fun seeing her for a day or two. It had been a while since we had last seen each other.
Today I learnt how to making wishing stars. They are small origami stars that start as a strip of simple paper. They can be made from pretty much anything, newspaper, straws and other things. When in Asia we were given some of these and really did not know the meaning behind them. But through a little research I found out what the mean or what some use them as. There are called wishing stars. Typically you write down a wish or a hope you have and then wrap it up very tight and put it in a jar. After reading this I started thinking about how silly that seemed, but the more I thought the more I realized that is what we do so often. Maybe not with a symbolic paper star but without hearts and minds. We pray that God will grant us this or that, we ask our hearts desires. But when we are not answer in our timing we fold up our request and toss it into a jar that was filled with past requests. When we do this we tend to forget what was written on that paper. We forget what we begged for. And if or when God grants us our plea we have long forgotten we even asked. Though this may be a stretch for some us to relate to, it is a reality in my life. I ask God and I ask God, then I assume that my prayers are as purposely as if I were wishing on a star. They are just dreams that I would like to see happen but somehow give up on. Many know my story and where I am within this mess of driving and home sharing. But few know my heart. Few know how it is hard to be hopeful when every other time it falls through. I stopped telling people when I had applied because they were excited and had hope, and I could not have hope because I was attempting survive. If I had to through another wish in a jar I was not sure I would have anything left. But God never asked me to throw away my hopes and dream he only asked me to be patient.
Though I am super excited that JP is able to work full time in ministry it completely terrifies me that we are going to attempt to survive on my income and mine alone. I know God will provide and that is what we are leaning on! Please pray for us enter into this new phase of our lives.
We will focus on the parties the news will have to wait. We had 3 birthday parties this week! Crazy! The 1st was for Kerstin she is Christina’s niece. Jaysa one of the children from the Trailer park was the 2nd and Tyler Josh’s cousin was the 3rd. So we had one Thursday, Saturday and Sunday J
The end of summer is approaching and we are gearing up for another year! With just a few weeks until the students arrive there is still much to do. 7 palates of power aid and water have arrived and are ready to be labeled for move in. 21 returning students are preparing for our August mission trip to Detroit. Don’t forget the children, our 4 week long program has ended and ended well! We are back to once a week (Tuesday Nights) currently we are working with a local church using another Vacation Bible School curriculum. After the Miami students arrive we will start back with after-school tutoring program.
Please be in prayer for the 21 students that are ending their summer on mission. Also pray for the new and old students that will be headed to Oxford this month, Pray that God will be revealed to them and that this campus will be radically changed for Christ. And lastly pray for East Asia we will be sending a team again this Christmas, pray for the hearts of those considering going and that God will provide the means for them to go. Thank you for your prayers and support, you are a blessing, the VBS materials were wonderful!!
The week ended with a carnival. I am pretty sure Josh is happy that the weeks are over, it has been crazy. Now he gets a short break before the next wave of craziness.
OH how hot! After church this week we had a small cook out/pool party. It was super-hot! But fun. We cooked hotdogs and hamburgers on the grill and relaxed in the pool. After the cook out we headed to the Husted’s for their cook out party. By this point I was a little pink so I avoided the sun while they played volleyball. I was just happy knowing I did not have to drive into work in the morning.
Now work today, so instead I headed to oxford to help with Clubhouse. This week was a VBS. So when the youth team got there we had them set up and decorate. I had to drive the Minivan to pick up the kidos. Numbers were down due to the holiday. I ended up teaching the preschool/kindergarten class and the 7 youth that were in the class with me. The kids were great the youth a little more challenging J Give me 20 Two year olds and I will be fine, but give me a room of 5 youth and I may go crazy.
Dawn is officially the owner of a home. Sometimes I wonder how I became the runt of the family. I seem to be a step behind, instead of moving out of our apartment into a house we moved in with granny. Instead of getting a job closer to home I took one 86 mile away. Am I crazy? Who knows all we can do is pray we are following God’s leading.
So it has been a pretty crazy week with Steve retiring. Steve is 3 bosses above me, he is basically the second in command on our floor. He is pretty easy to work with and pretty well like. So his retirement was kinda big deal so we went all out. The theme was Steve Goes to Training. We had certificates and a story book. It was lots of fun.
Dinner with Dawn and Swapna YUM! We had a quick chat and dinner at our favorite spot. Then Dawn and I headed to JoAnn’s with mom. We just needed to pick up thread and a few other things, and since we had a coupon we decided to go. We while at the store the lights flash a few times and the storm hit. We were trapped for a while since it was “raining cats and dogs” finally we braved or ran franticly to the car so we could head home. Once home Dawn and I headed to the basement to sort boxes since she had been looking at houses and was working on moving out.
This week was my Sunday to teach the children at church, we talked about Noah and the arc. So for the craft we made rain sticks with the memory verse on them. Oh I forgot how much fun it is to teach 2nd grade. I truly miss being a part of the church sometimes I wish things were different but for now I will wait for God to make the changes he sees fit.
This weekend was the father’s day banquet at First Baptist it was tons of fun and I had a blast making an underwater sculpture out of fruit. J
This week was official the start of Clubhouse for the summer. Christina, Amy and Josh are running the show. They are basically running a day camp for the kids in the community. This is a four week long program so we are praying for help and patience. This week we were blessed to have a mission team help out with everything. Each week they take the kids on field trips, this week was fishing with the Oxford Police and then Friday at the Zoo…no worries everyone returned home safely J.
Josh went to the Brunch with his dad and brothers. I left after my fruit setup and when home to chill/get ready for the 20 girls that were headed my way for our summer girl’s night. It was tons of fun we made pizza and for dessert we had a fruit pizza decorating contest. Yum we made GF pizza for me and my sis it was so yummy!
This was a first, Lynn has gone a few times and invited me but I have not been able to go until now. Basically everything valued at:
$1-$25 cost 1 quarter to bid
$26-$50 cost 1 quarter to bid
$51-$75 cost 1 quarter to bid
You bring your quarters and you bid on different items! Lots of Fun! There was Mary Kay products, Tupperware, Pampered Chef, Tastefully Simple, Longaberger, 31 Bags, and bunches of other home sale items.
This week was the men’s breakfast for Father’s Day. I was asked to make a fruit sculpture…they were pretty vague with what they wanted in particular so I sat down with D and we came up with elaborate Under the Sea meets Gone Fishin’ it was tons of fun!! Last night I went to work on the creation. I had a handful of youth that volunteered to help…they were helpful!! Everything turned out wonderful!! Pictures soon to come!!
Morning service was good I ended up watching one of the kids that wanted his momma, we colored with Chalk and then after church Marie showed up for the block party! Yea Marie, we all miss her L
Went garage saling with my mother and sisters today it was fun; I did not spend a dime. Which is probably a good thing J After the garage sales I headed home to see my hubby and the new XMEN movie. It was really good! We went with a bunch of the students from Miami. After the movie I had a slight melt down, possibly since I had been in Columbus all week and really felt like I was not a part of anything that I used to be a part of. It is really frustrating when you go from a role where you contributed and were asked to be a part to a role that is nonexistent and where people are afraid to ask you to help because of your situation. So rather than feeling a part you feel like you are being pushed out and don’t belong.
So each week I typically stay a night in Columbus to save a little on driving to get a little extra rest. However this week has been crazy. I was in cbus Tuesday night, came home Wednesday night, the banquet was Thursday so I stayed in cbus that night then tomorrow is garage saling with the family so I will not be home until Saturday afternoon. In Oxford it was the kids concert JP attended, after the concert Chad was teasing about how JP has not seen me this week and was asking if we needed to go to counseling. Well one of the students was very worried that we were really having issues…but we are not…we other that we have crazy schedules and I am ready for bed.
Last night was Gwyn’s banquet for Girls Scouts she asked if Dawn and I would come, so we did. It was cute to see how much the girls had accomplished over the year. We also had red velvet cookies…yum!
After this week vacation was sounding soo good! Well I took Friday off so we could head to Indianapolis to chill and have a weekend away, off the grid as JP calls it. So Friday morning we get up and head to Newport to see the fishes. I have never been to the aquarium it was lots of fun! After the aquarium we found out that we did not have a hotel in Indianapolis due to the Indy 500 rooms were overbooked and we were bummed. We tried really hard to find a hotel that was open and did not cost an arm and a leg, but we did not succeed. So instead we stayed at home and had a ‘staycation’. We had dinner at Ruby Tuesdays YUM, except JP was not feeling so great (good thing we stayed home) Saturday was nice we slept in and Granny left with the boys to head to KY for the day. So it was just me and JP. Later in the day we headed to Fairborn to hit some book stores, comic stores and goodwill and ice cream. It was fun we just did some running had Texas Roadhouse for dinner and then headed home. Sunday we got up and went to Apex for church the music was great and the message was straight from the word! After Church we had Chipotle for lunch and headed to the in-laws to work a Veggie Puzzle J it was so cute. Monday was the last day of our staycation we had lunch with the in-laws and then headed to Meijer and Walgreens to use my coupons.
This week has been a crazy week Monday and Tuesday I held training for our CSNs we had a small group on Monday and 10 or 11 on Tuesday. I trained them on our new outpatient billing system. I really enjoy training and planning for these events!
Ok So Happy Homemaker Cindy came and did a seminar at Miamisburg. It was great we all learnt a lot about saving and stock piling. So I have officially began my stock pile and coupon adventure! Watch out Grocery Stores here I come!!
