Created for God's Glory

I am reading through Isaiah currently (little by little, trying to learn and glean as much as I can) and not long ago read this verse:

Isaiah 43:7

"Everyone who is called by My name,

and whom I have created for My glory,

Whom I have formed,

even whom I have made."

This is just one little verse from a big book (and I recommend going and reading more of it!) but I think it has a pretty neat message. People wonder from time to time, "Why are we here?" , "What is life's purpose?" this verse pretty much takes care of that. We are here to bring glory to God. That is our life's purpose.

Now the question is: "Am I doing that?" and are you doing that?

Fixing Chairs

A huge way to save money in the home (in my humble opinion) is to fix up and keep using what you already have. This is something that I put into practise not long ago when fixing some of our chairs.

  We had some major issues with these chairs coming apart. The legs we tried glueing together again but they kept coming unglued which was rather dangerous as people were almost ready to crash to the floor.
Also the top part had come off of one of them. It was time for a solution!

 My Dad suggested doing a little wiring along with the gluing. So armed with some carpenter glue AND some florist wire I went to work. (I am sure you wouldn't have to use florist wire but I had that handy.)

This one wasn't too bad and a few crossways wires seem to be doing the job quite nicely. The other one had more issues so I put quite a bit of wire down there. I figure it can do double duty as a musical instrument now. :-) Anyway, they might look a little funny, though it really isn't that noticeable, but I am glad to have them in service again. I also am thankful not to have to spend any money to fix them OR buy any new ones right now!

For more frugal hints visit Life as MOM.

Learning about the Middle East

We have been studying about the Middle East lately (Currently we are "in" the United Arab Emirates) and have had fun bringing it into our meals a few times too. This evening we decided to be adventuresome and eat on the floor like most people do over there.

   The boys had a blast getting the "table" ready. Mara and I worked on the menu. Megan just worked at dressing just right! (Some doll clothes/a nightie worn when an infant, a scraf and lovely plaid pants filled the bill.)  Mara and I added scarves too as most women over their wear something of the sort.

 This was our menu for the evening:

Fish

Rice

Flatbread

Hummus (I found a recipe and made it for the first time!)

Olives

Dates

Tea

Pineapple (I am not sure of the authenticity of this one.)

The kids decided eating without silverware would be more authentic too. I thought I had pictures of Ken and I too but they all ended up blurry. :-) Anyway we had fun at our little middle eastern party so I thought it would be fun to tell you about it.

  We have enjoyed studying about the Middle East but are certianly not tempted to move there! We enjoy our country and the freedoms we enjoy here. A lot of our reading has left us a little sad and hoping there is someone we can help share Christ's love to all the lost ones there!

A couple of weeks ago I had fun making another Middle Eastern meal (while studying Jordan). I did some major modifying of recipes but we enjoyed Pita bread with a really yummy marinated chicken (that I can't seem to find the recipe for now!) and then my own personal version (read not authentic!) of Taboulah. Ken and I and some of the kids really enjoyed it. It was fun to try!

Do you have any Middle Eastern foods that you really enjoy?

What works for this {not so organized} homeschool mom

This past weekend we had fun having some out of town guests stay with us. On Sunday afternoon Carrie and I had fun talking about homeschooling. We grew up together (I am a few years older however) and were both homeschooled ourselves and now we have the fun of doing it with our children. We don't get to see each other very often but keep up somewhat through our blogs. Anyway to get to the topic... as we were visiting Carrie said to me: "You seem so organized in your homeschooling". Well this post is a little attempt to keep it real around here!

There are so many ways I am not organized when it comes to homeschooling! I do not make a lesson plan for the year or the month or even the week. I do not have well prepared and planned ahead of time in depth unit studies for my children. I do not have field trips scheduled that fit in perfectly with our course of study. There are many other things I do not do. It isn't that I have anything against those things,its just that it hasn't worked for me at this point of my life. And I guess what I hope to encourage others with is that you don't have to be super organized in order to have a fun and good and Learning homeschooling experience.

 So what do I do? Here is what works for me (us):

• I do order Math, English and Spelling workbooks for Mara and Jonathan. But I will admit that I was late ordering them this year so we were a few weeks late in getting started with our "official" school year. (Just keeping things real! )
• I do have a general schedule for each day. Routine works great for us! Of course then some days(like today) other things get scheduled and then our normal routine doesn't happen.
• I do like to have a general goal of things that I want my kids to learn. We have had fun learning about subjects such as the states or countries and I just find books and figure out a few activities here and there as we go along.
• I do have a lot of learning material on hand to encourage all of to keep learning. We are blessed to have my parents to pass many homeschooling things on to us (I and my siblings have all been homeschooled) as well as others in church. Having a flexible learning plan allows me to use up the things that we have been given. I keep them all on a particular shelf and try to go through it every so often to see if there is anything I want to pull out and put to use at that time.
• I do have a reading aloud time scheduled for each day. It has been our routine ever since Mara was tiny to read a naptime story and so now every day after lunch we just plan on that together time. At first it started as just a story book, then we added Bible in at that time. Now we read geography and history and sometimes science as well. We read fun books so it is not boring textbook reading it is reading that generally keeps the kids asking for more.
• I do have various workbooks available (ones that have been given to us) for Aaron and Megan to work in. It amazes me how much they learn with our scrapped together education!
• I do have lots of fun on this homeschooling journey and usually so do our children! And that I think is important. It works for me!

This is our shelf of learning!

What works for you in your homeschooling? Are you the really organized type or a little more freestyle?

Redoing our stairs!

As of last week we had some pretty yucky looking stairs at our house. We have a split level and when we moved in their was cream colored carpet on both flights. In the process of finishing our downstairs and hauling stuff in the carpet on the lower stairs got totally ruined and so we pulled it off a few years ago a since then have had stairs that looked like this:

Not very beautiful but we intended to make them in the beautiful wooden steps someday. The stairs bothered both Ken and I but we hadn't had the time or money to do what we thought needed to be done.

On the upper stairs we hadn't pulled off the carpet yet but it had gotten horribly stained and was really bugging me! It looked like this:

 When I was reading some blogs I saw some steps that looked very nice and made me realize maybe there was a way that I could make the steps look better all by myself withouth having to use much money. The first blog the really inspired me I just happened upon and I have no idea where it is now but then recently Melissa at The Inspired Room showed how she had redone some of her stairs. I decided that I could do this! Time to get to work!

At first we tried just sanding the treads. (I had decided to use just what is in place, even though there are some cracks and they don't fit perfectly against the wall. This is still temporary as we are planning on getting it done professionally possibly this summer)

    Mara wanted to earn some money so I put her to work. She decided to don a couple of hats for ear protection! Sanding made the wood look pretty beautiful but it wasn't getting the paint off very well. I went searching online and found a method of paint removal that ended up working beautifully!

  To remove the paint I just took rubbing alcohol and poured a little bit on the painted part and spread it out over all of the paint. (It didn't take much of the alcohol) I let it set just a little bit (a minute or so) and then easily scraped it off with a paint scraper. The stuff that didn't scrape off I just wiped off with a rag. It was so simple!

When we got to the upper stairs we had to pull off the carpet. Jonathan helped to pull out all of the staples. Then I removed paint and sanded those steps as well.

 For the next step I took paint that matched the walls and painted the back of each step and then I stained the tread.

Here is the upstairs ones:

And the downstairs:

They are not perfect but I think they are so much better and I love them! It was several hours worth of work but it is worth it!

This post is linking to:

Do it yourself day at a Soft Place to Land

Trash to Treasure at Reinvented

Thankful!

"It is good to give thanks to the Lord and to sing praises to Your name,

O Most High;

To declare Your lovingkindness in the morning

and Your faithfulness by night."

Psalm 92:1 & 2

So much to be thankful for!

# 414 Friends coming up for a wedding and then staying at our house!

#415 Friendships that I can't remember when they started (since they have been since babyhood).

#416 Lots of fun memories!

#417 The color purple. I am really enjoying it lately!

#418 Fun times reading to my Meggie girl.

#419 Sweet and crisp apples dipped in peanut butter. Yummy!

#420 A sweet big brother that voluntarily reads his sister stories.

#421 Time to finish up some projects around the house. (more on that tomorrow)

#422 Sunny days that just pull us outside!

#423 The kids getting close to done with their schoolbooks for the year.

#424 Finding some fun old books that we can learn from together.

#425 Snow melting!

#426 Grass showing.

#427 Puddles forming.

#428 Dreams.

#429 Fun times organizing.

#430 That my God can do anything!