time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin' into the future

Kyle and I spent all day at church on Wednesday after women's Bible class (which I am beginning to enjoy, btw). We were very busy getting stuff done, and we had fun doing it! My teaching CBC went ok, I think. It wasn’t until we were on our way home that I realized I didn't have to tell the children to turn around, or be quiet during the lesson. Everyone was attentive and they were answering my questions. Some of the kids told me afterward that they loved the songs, so that was nice. But some of them were negative about everything I did. Oh well. I put my heart into it, and that’s all God expects of me. (I think they enjoyed using the musical instruments, even if they don't admit it!)

Tonight I made these really awesome potatoes. They are like mashed potatoes stuffed back inside of the skins that I double-baked after I coated them with olive oil and kosher salt. They were crispy and crunchy and salty, and then the creamy potatoes inside were just so succulent. Topped with a little butter and Parmesan cheese, and mmmmm! So good! Last night we made smoothies out of mango, pineapple, strawberries and peaches. The natural sweetness from the fruit satisfied my cravings for chocolate!! I have decided that I am too fat, and I feel pathetic about it. Time to get serious. No more junk food!! So, any food pics from now on will be on the healthy side. No more chocolate desserts or anything like that. I can’t afford to get any fatter! Must work out! Must lose weight!

On to bigger and better news, Ryan got his haircut yesterday!! Yay!! So, here’s a picture of him. He looks great! Pretty soon he will lose the braces. Wow, it’s been so long since I’ve seen him without them. He will change all over again! Cant’ wait to see him and hear him sing at church. The light coming in the window looks like God is shining down on him!
Tonight I am going to try to finish Jeremiah. I’m so tired I don’t know if I’ll be able to, but we’ll see.

boasting about my weaknesses

Wow, where do I start? I have missed a lot of days. What on earth have I been doing? Oh yeah, taking care of the house, cooking, cleaning, bills, laundry, my son, my husband, bulletin, power point, children’s church, cbc, reading the Bible in 90 days, exercising... What have I forgotten? Oh, I know, babysitting... now that is something I haven’t done since I was a kid!

Hahaha... Things have been crazy. But I think it’s partly my own fault, because even when I don’t have any pressing issues, I work on things for the future. Like for example, I’ve already been looking for lesson ideas for Palm Sunday and Easter. I mean, what is it with me? Why do I do these things? Ok, I’ll tell you. I think it’s because I want things to be so good. I think that no matter what we do, we need to give it our best. Now, if I got up in the morning on a day I am teaching and I have nothing prepared, what good am I? I don’t believe in flying by the seat of my pants. I believe that if I am going to teach children, I need to have it firm in my mind what I want to say so they’ll understand it, otherwise I waste my time. But more importantly they don’t grow in the Lord.

It is so weird to me when I see God working in my life. Who would have ever thought that I would want to be around a bunch of kids? Not me, that’s for sure. Isn’t it just like God to stick you somewhere that you are the weakest? Same with home schooling. Why on earth would God want me to home school my kids when He knows that is my greatest weakness? I hated school with a passion! I dropped out of school!! I didn’t know how to teach anything!! I did not know how to stay home and take care of kids at all. I never did it before. I always had a job. Life is so much easier if you can just leave the house and go to work and give your kids to someone else to deal with, right? Oh, but God was so good to me when He put a burning desire in me to do something I was incapable of doing. And I’m so glad He did. It wasn’t easy. In fact it was the most difficult thing I have ever done. But it was also the best investment I could have made in their lives. No job could have paid me enough to take those years with my boys away from me.

God’s word says that His power is made perfect in our weakness. I am living proof of that. I think if you ever want to be used by God and you are sincere in that desire, you better watch out because He will plunge you into the very thing you really suck at so that you can’t get any of the glory for doing it. I am nothing without His strength. Whatever “success” we had in home schooling was all by God’s grace.

So...I gave my testimony at church today. I was so nervous I was practically hyperventilating. But God got me through it! And I’m so glad too, because I was not in the mood for a meltdown.

I am halfway through Isaiah!

Ryan shaved off the “beard”! I can see his face again!

Kyle bowled! And he totally loved it.

And both of them have enjoyed going to basketball games for the first time in their lives.

And like I mentioned at the top, I babysat for Ben and Isaac. I think they are my buddies now.

New adventures on the horizon:
I am teaching the Bible lesson at CBC this week, and doing music.
I am becoming an actual secretary at church this week. haha...

Oh goody!! More challenges!

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.
2 Corinthians 12:9

who do you love?

Valentine’s Day is not something typically celebrated in my household so I was shocked to receive this Origami Rose that my wonderful son, Kyle made. He is so thoughtful. No wonder I love him so much.

Children’s church yesterday was pretty good, I thought. Can’t believe how big the class is now. I remember last year doing it and we only had like 4-5 kids. Now there are around 15-17. Kyle took half the class to do the craft project, and I took half to do the lesson. Since today is Valentine’s Day I decided to do it on love, Biblical love. We talked about what love is, what it isn’t, what it looks like in our lives, and who we are supposed to love. We also discussed what God says we are if we don’t have love. I think the kids actually learned something! Can’t say the craft was a success though. Kyle ran out of time and most of the kids didn’t finish… so next time I gotta come up with something way easier, or he needs more helpers.

On the way home with a splitting headache, I said to Kyle, “You know, as difficult and stressful as Children's Church is, I really enjoy doing it.” He totally agreed. There is nothing more important than reaching the children.

Happy Birthday, Ryan!

Ryan Taylor VeghThis is one of the first pictures taken after his birth.
This one is 6 months later.
My son is 19 years old today! I have missed him at home, but I know he is where he needs to be to grow into the man God wants him to be. Nobody ever said it would be easy to let him go. I am missing so much of his life now. And that is hard after having him home 24/7 while we home schooled. I guess parents who have their kids in public schools are so used to them being gone all day long that it’s no big deal when they move away. They have no idea what they are missing!! All the precious moments during the day of watching them learn, watching them experience life, all the smiles & laughs, all those moments when they need a hug or to talk. So many things I would have missed out on if my boys were in public school. I’m so thankful to God for the years, the days, and those precious moments of having them home. Ryan is getting used to college life now, and loving it. Next time Kyle will be leaving. I can’t even imagine that.

So busy today: exercising, shopping, cooking, reading, studying next Bible lessons for tomorrow. I’m so glad that Pastor Karl is teaching it tomorrow. Before long we’ll be done for the year!

Tomorrow: Women's Bible class in the morning, then Kyle’s Bible lessons, do some work at church, CBC in the evening, come home for a late dinner, and watch American Idol. It’ll be a full day.
These are salty, crispy little cracker things I made out of hot dog rolls. They came out so good! Perfect with soup or cheese, or all alone.

Leader of the Pack

Packers are Super Bowl Champs!! Yay! And congratulations to all the Packer fans out there. I know you waited a long time for this win! And yay to Aaron Rodgers!! So glad he got the pretty red camaro.




We had such a good time with company Friday night. Spiro and Danielle made really delicious chicken parm for us, complete with salad and dessert. You just can't beat that!! It’s too bad that Ryan hadn’t been here because that’s one of his favorite meals. (sorry, Ryan)

At long last, the hole in the kitchen ceiling is gone. Here is the nearly completed project. All we have to do now is trim the pendant lights to length. My husband did a great job, huh?
Can you believe we are already planning our summer trips? Seems funny to me that we have to start thinking about airfare for trips we are taking late in the summer!! But yep, that’s where we are. If you need anything from me, please book in advance! Haha!

Yesterday I taught Children's Church. We learned about the Super Bowl. Hahaha....well sort of. We learned that you can tell who a person follows just by looking at them. Steelers fans wave yellow terrible towels. Packers fans wear cheese on their heads. What does a Jesus follower look like? What does a Satan follower look like? hmmm... good lesson, I thought. Next week we are doing LOVE for Valentine's Day.

I'm almost halfway through the Bible!

Iceman fell down and melted. He was over 6' long!

We saw a pretty fox today.

Tomorrow Ryan turns 19!!

breath of heaven

Had to cancel CBC. Too many people were concerned about the icy conditions. And it was nice. Kyle and I stayed home and watched Dr. Who, which for some odd reason I really love. Later I made some cool snacks to have for Idol: little pretzels with peanut butter and chocolate. Fun night!

After all the years of Ryan’s home schooling, he finally got his first snow day today at college! So thrilling!

Darryl got the kitchen ceiling patched, spackled, and painted. All that's left now is to put the lighting back up! woot! Maybe tomorrow is the day we have lights back in the kitchen again!

Job 37:10 The breath of God produces ice,
and the broad waters become frozen.

Iceman's missing appendage

We found it hanging from our balcony. It's over 5 feet long!

Here we are in the midst of another winter storm. This time it is ice. We got so much ice the other day that it froze up in the seams of our new window in the living room and began melting inside the house. Evidently the guys who installed the window didn’t do such a great job of caulking it. Tonight we are getting hit with another ice storm which means I might cancel CBC tomorrow. We’ll see.

What’s new, you ask? My house is a disaster. There is clutter everywhere I look! Tools, paint, light fixture pieces, boxes, wires, spackle, dust, and more tools! I am so thankful for the work being done, but I am slowly going mad having to step over things and not being able to clean up. Yesterday I spent the day in the dining room going over work I had to get done. This morning Kyle and I shoveled snow and ice. Then I spent the rest of the day in the kitchen making food; Honey Lime Chicken Enchiladas, Mexican rice, and a pot of soup for tomorrow. I was missing some ingredients, so I spent all day (literally, all day standing in the kitchen) making my own ingredients...I must be nuts. I wouldn’t be able to do it without Pandora! But I am thrilled to report that dinner was out of this world delicious, even better than last time I made it.

We aren’t having any success getting home owner’s insurance on the house we are selling. It’s so stinking discouraging. We had 2 small claims (counting the fire in the kitchen) and so now they won’t insure the other house. Unbelievable! We have had to fill the oil tank so there would be heat so that the pipes wouldn’t freeze up and burst (water damage), have the heater repaired (fire hazard!), pay the mortgage and the real estate taxes, and we lowered the price of the house again. At this point we both just want to get rid of this burden and put this mistake behind us before anything worse happens.

Sometimes I don’t write for a while. I think it’s because I have too much on my mind and I can’t condense it down to a manageable size to write about. In fact, I can’t even condense it down enough to think about.

I finished Ezra, moving on to Nehemiah.

After a long 3 week wait, Kyle finally received his new Yoyo from SPYY, the “Punch Line! Repeater”. Kyle gets these yoyo’s for free because he features SPYY in his tutorials on Rethinkyoyo.com. Quite a nice deal.

Company coming Friday. The house might be clean and it might not. I am trying not to fret about it.

Here is a poem that Ryan wrote. If you’d like to check out his blog, here it is: The Life of Ryan Vegh

To the Divinely Delightful One

God, Your Word is so awesome.
It is divinely delightful, as You are.
It makes my heart sing
And lightens the burdens I have felt.
It draws me in and won’t let me go,
For my heart knows that only You satisfy.
Your every word is flawless and tastes so sweet,
Satisfying me more than my food
And quenching my spirit more than my drink ever could.

I love You and am solely impressed by Your love.
My relations in this world cannot compare
To the greatness I have found in You.
May Your name be praised in the loudest voice!
May every eye see the vast immensity of Your blinding glory,
Falling on their knees in awe and fear.
May I, too, join them on my face,
Silently pleading before You
For strength for the coming day,
For love to give and show to others.

O God, bless my tongue to taste Your name
And ever for it there to dwell.
How can I speak of another
When my eyes have seen You?
As Job said,
“I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear,
But now my eye sees you;
Therefore I despise myself,
And repent in dust and ashes.”
- Job 42:5-6