Ok, so I finally managed to make myself sit down and have a good quiet time yesterday.  I spent some time writing out my thoughts, praying, and then reading in God’s word and reading a book I”m studying now for an upcoming BIble study I”m beginning to lead.  THe book is called Creative Counterpart, its about our role as a wife, mom, woman. Very good read.  I am also reading “Supermom Has Left the Building” quite a comical take on the same topic.  I am enjoying both books.  THe lady whom I asked to be my mentor let me borrow the later book.  I also spent some extra time preparing my Wed. night Bible study for my youth group.  This definitely paid off, I felt that what I said to them came from my heart and was  a little disappointed when I walked in and one of my younger youth asked if we could cut it short tonight. I politely said, no, I have something to share with you, and I don’t care how long it takes. She sullied but was ok.  My oldest youth seemed to eat it up. He loves it when I take the time to really get into a study with them.  Though his girlfriend was whiny because he was getting all the answers right, things went pretty well.  I fel that my quiet time in study and prayer paid off.  I know I need to be more diligent about this in the future.  Does anyone else have difficulty making time to sit and study?  Or is it just me?

Share This

Some of you may or may not know that this past year , well this past Spring, I helped to start a mentoring program in our church between the TOMgirls ( my age group of ladies) and the Girls in Action (girls 1st-6th grade).  It has gone pretty well, I’m not sure that they have actually done very much for the girls but hopefully they have.

Now, I am taking a mentoring class in seminary, Women Mentoring Women , and I have been encouraged to have a mentor of my own. SO, I asked a lady from church whom I feel I can trust and we’re going to lunch today to discuss mentoring. Please pray that this will be a good match for me and that this will work out and be a positive thing in my life.  Right now I feel like I need something just for me. I ‘m not being selfish but I have 0 time for myself and am not getting spiritually fed, I”m not doing well on my quiet times there is just so much I need to get straight.  Please pray. Thanks.

Share This

I was encouraged by my friend Kimberly to try Flylady. I’ve tried flylady before, but being the perfectionist that I am I got caught up in all the steps organizing my to do list and everything and got little to nothing done as a result.  So I still felt overwhelmed. Today however, Kimberly, told me to try doing 15 min cleanups and then take breaks in between. I’ve been doing that since 12 noon and I have completely finished cleaning my house, kitchen, dining table, bathroom, bedroom, laundry room, and vaccumming and mopping! WHOO HOO! HOpefully I can get in a better nighttime routine now of cleaning up the kitchen and everything that’s another area I slack on.  I will also use the flylady emails I already receive to keep me on track.  I did print out flylady’s daily routine to try and help me incorporate some of it into my routine.  I already do meal planning and know that tonight we’re having homemade vegetable soup and crackers.  I will start on it in about 45 min or so.  Tonight I”ll have to be doing school work and church work that requires sitting at the computer, hopefully hubby wont’ mind if I go outside with him and Baker for a while after dinner. I am soo behind.  But at least my house is clean whoo hoo!! Thanks ya’ll.  I knew I could get support from my online buddies.

Share This

Get it all done….???

Ok all you moms out there. I am feeling overwhelmed. I have 1000 things to do and can’t seem to get it all done.  I have school work that I missed while on vacation, (online classes), work I need to do for church, housework ( the house is a wreck), and other random things that need to be done, bill paying , etc.. I need to run to town but hate to get dressed just to come back and clean, ugh! What do you all do to get organized and get it all done.  I feel like everything is just spinning and I can’t do it  all.

Suggestions?

Share This

Well, Hubby and Baker and I just returned from Vacation on Saturday. We had an extremely good time.  There is so much I could tell about. The weather in Gatlinburg was gorgeous. The cabin we stayed in was gorgeous, I am going to post our pics in an album here on yahoo for you to view.  We had no problems with going hungry as I felt like all we did was eat LOL!  We also got to see the beautiful mountains, rode all the way over the top of Newfoundland Gap and into Cherokee, NC.  We also made the hike up to Laurel Falls to see this 80 foot waterfall, breathtaking!  It was so much fun!  I especially liked the Old Mill in Pigeon Forge, we went back there several times, eating at both the Pottery House Cafe and the Old Mill Restaurant itself and purchasing almost all our souvenirs, at least for our loved ones at the Old Mill Kitchen Store.  We did a little shopping at the outlet malls on Friday because of rain, but otherwise we mostly were into the site seeing.  Now we’ve got to get back into the rat race we call life.  Sigh!  Don’t miss my pictures though got some great ones!

Share This

I am feeling positive today as we’ve been doing Dave for almost a month now and we are doing well.  WE’ve paid off 5 small debts and working on the others.  We had some money in savings that helped and we have a CD also that we were considering using but Dave said that with a baby on the way having the money stuck back in a CD is a good idea because of the fact that the baby is much more important and if we were faced with a medical situation , God forbid, we’d be prepared.  But it is a good idea!

If you’re wondering about what all this DAVE talk is about go to www.daveramsey.com and listen to his show live daily 2pm-5pm EST.  Its worth it!

We’re also feeling good because we’re leaving on vacation on Monday!  WHOO HOO its finally here and I have my cash in my envelopes for the trip! Can’t wait!  It couldn’t get here fast enough for me!

Share This

As many of you know, I have a heart for teens and especially want to be able to touch the lives of teen and preteen girls.  Therefore, I started a ministry, Beauty By Design Ministries, to help me accomplish this task.  It has not taken off in the way that I had hoped though, and I have been wondering why.   As I continued to ask God, “WHY?” He began to show me. This past weekend at church we had a women’s conference and the speaker was Becky Brown. SHe has a ministry called Little Brown Light Ministries.  Anyway, through her speaking on Saturday and my thoughts  and prayers I realize that God is saying, “Alyssa, you’re not prepared.”  Therefore I realize that I need to spend much more time in prayer and Bible study and studying and preparing the topics that God has given me to give to the girls.  SHe encouraged me and told me that I needed to be an expert on those topics knowing everything about them from both the world’s perspective and the Bible’s so that I could answer any questions anyone might have about them. I should realize what I am up against and be informed about what the world is saying and what I am up against.  It is clearly time for me to have focus on this.  But, it is hard with so many other things going on at once I am having a hard time staying FOCUSED on just one.  Pray that I can clearly have at least some time to focus on this studying and preparing.

Share This

This has absolutely got to be the busiest time of year, school, church activities, families gearing up for the holiday season that will be here before you know it.  We had a car wash at church last night raising money for State Missions, I have a meeting at church tonight, first football game of the season tomorrow night at home, a Women’s Conference at church on Saturday, church on Sunday and next week looks almost as crazy.

We are going to be going on vacation in less than 2 weeks though!! WHOO HOO!! Getting away! I can’t wait.  Gatlinburg here we come!  I can’t wait to see it this time of year.

Anyone else take a fall vacation? This is our first family vacation period so… we’re just excited to be going!

Share This

Well, before hubby and I started Dave we had set aside some money to do some what we call “home improvement”.  Everyone is asking what?? Your house is only 3 years old.  Yes, but when you get a house built they are skimpy sometimes on stuff.  They painted our entire house with FLAT carpenters paint. It is the cheapest, nastiest stuff.  My son has touched the walls and left fingerprints with clean hands its so bad.  It was also scuffed and scratched from just everyday stuff.  Sooo we wanted to paint again with Satin or Semi-gloss paint of much higher quality so we have begun. I painted our bathroom which needed it majorly about 3 weeks ago.  It is a cocoa color, then we started on the bedroom on Saturday.  It is called Faux Marble and is just a bit darker than the cocoa. I am using teal, brown and cream in there.  It is going to look very nice.  Then our den/dining area which is open with 12 foot ceilings we began painting Saturday evening and it is called Late Tomato, it is not a red, red, but a sublte red which we love, this room is so large and this color really warms it up. We’re going to have to finish trim and such today.  I can’t wait to get my house put back together as it is majorly torn apart from moving everything to paint.  My hubby is off today of course for LABOR day and we have to finish!  He has to go to work tomorrow and this is a busy week for us both.  We have a lot going on at church and I have my online classes to do, grocery shopping to do, and our school has a home ballgame this weekend so I have to go watch that on Friday night, however I am looking forward to that because I absolutely love football Fridays and the weather is getting soooo nice for it too.  I may even ask my youth when the pep rally is and take Baker to that.  OHHH yes, speaking of Baker, he went to Sunday School (2-3 year old) for the first time yesterday as a big boy.  He was so proud, and helped his teacher “keen  up” (clean up) as he says. He then came to big church and sat between me and Greg. He was such a good boy!  I am so proud of him.  Oh yea and an update on the potty training. Today is 2 weeks we’ve been doing the sticker board.  He isn’t quite as intersted in the sticker board anymore but yesterday before bed when we changed him into his jammies he had on the same pair of big boy underoos as I put on that morning before church.  He had successfully gone potty all day!  WHOO HOO!! HOwever we still have to work on the “poo pot”  ohh my this is tough.  However we are out of diapers for the most part, he just wears one to bed.  Hallelujah!  Can you tell I’m a proud momma??  I know I’ve written about more than just paint on this post but I had to remember everything that has been going on since I haven’t written since Wednesday.  Ok I guess that’s it!  Talk to everyone later on!

Share This