Need I say more?

Is there anything I could say that could add to this treasure?
I didn't think so.

Why can't we be friends? Why can't we be friends?

My children, my children, my children......phew! I refer back to my earlier title of Calgon...take me away. I am in the throws of sibling life. Our sweet 4 people that live with us don't exactly feel the same way about each other as we feel about them or that, of course, God feels about them. How do I know this? It is painfully obvious at times. I know there must be some sort of feeling deep down, but it is a little tough to find. Jacob just burst in our front door saying that Claire should be thankful for what she gets. He was referring to her not wanting the tennis racket with what she thought was a "booger" on it. This is just one example...there are many others. I love 'em. I do think that one day they will really appreciate each other.

This week feels like it should be over already. Last night was Open House at my elementary school. The first graders sang one song with a CD and Matt played guitar for them to sing another song. They were a bit nervous during the first song. I was so glad that they had a second one to really sing out. They did great!

Tomorrow night we are listening to our Christmas musical in choir. We are bringing goodies and apple cider to get us in the Christmas spirit. We are doing One of Us. It is a great musical. Can't wait for everyone to hear it. Choir has been really full lately. It seems like God is blessing this group. There are so many good singers, but most of all, just people who want to worship. It is a blessing to go on Wednesday nights.

Some neat God things have been happening. One I think I will mention is that our neighbor across the street brought us a huge box of clothes that their son had grown out of. They were great and most of them fit. In the box was a nice size 10 suit. I wasn't sure when we would use it. Only one of our guys would have one unless we bought another, and we really don't wear clothes like that. Sadly, two of my kids at school lost their 35 year old dad this past week. There are many circumstances around this that made it sad even before he passed away. (custody battles, etc.) The little boy did not have a suit to wear to his dad's funeral. One of our teachers was getting this all together for them. The little girl was given some dresses by our principal that were her daughter's. I was so blessed to be able to drive the suit and some of the khakis, etc. up to Potts Camp on Saturday for him to wear. It is strange how God meets needs sometimes.

He always has a plan.

Hope you all have a blessed week!

Look Great Feel Great

I have been really enjoying getting to watch Joyce Meyer while I am getting ready in the mornings. God is really using her so much to reach me and to nudge me to a new level. I have been convicted about how I have treated myself. For what I have put into my body, etc.
She talks about when you don't like yourself you are more likely to get sick. I am listening to her online now, and as I listen I have had a cold for several days.

I have been at the point lately where I haven't believed that it was possible for me to change. Listening to her has made me think that there may be hope...that I might not have to stay overweight. I can't even imagine myself as a smaller person. I am a little afraid to even try to change, but I really want to. It is so tough to change habits, though, but I am going to take it slowly. She is talking right now about having a balance. I really want her book.
Here is a link to her site.





Here is an amazing site of a person who lost over half of her weight and is still going. It is called Half of Me. It is not from the same viewpoint as Joyce Meyer, but it is still very interesting. She has some really neat pictures of her progress. I really admire her. Click on this picture to view her blog.




I have already been trying to retrain my thinking. Last year, when school would be stressful, I thought I was about to die if I didn't get some quick energy from chocolate and a diet coke, or some other snack. Now I have asked my principal to ask me when she sees me if I bought a candy bar or if I snacked between meals. I did have a couple of Triscuits today, but that is all. I am going to try to go even longer without food, knowing that, in fact, I will not die.

I think I have just been walking around in a big fog. I guess if life is stressful at all I just want to escape, and food is an escape. Now I am asking God to forgive me for that and to try to think a different way.

Enough of that. Hope these sites bless you.

Matt's Guitar Teaching Blog

Here is Matt's new blog about his experiences teaching classroom guitar lessons.

What we have all been waiting for

We finally decided where Benjamin's birthday is going to be. He wanted to check out everywhere in town to see what was available.

I am glad he is happy with his choice. After all, one of his very favorite things is popcorn and they deliver the popcorn to us as we watch the movie. It just couldn't get much better.

We are going to see Underdog. I hope it is good. It is PG, so I hope it is OK. I can't believe how fast this year is passing. Claire finally lost her infamous front tooth.

I love her grin. It seemed like it would never come out. Now she only has the other one to have a truly perfect grin. She said she scared some of the other kids at school with her smile. I thought...."How sad". She didn't seem to mind, though. Here is her showing me what she looked like. I agreed that it scared me, too. Happy Wednesday!

School Answering Machine

OK...I heard this the other morning on my way to work. See what you think. I am a teacher, so this really struck me as pretty funny. I am not making any personal judgements or accusations against anyone personally...I just thought this was amusing. There is my disclaimer.

It came from jjanderic.afr.net.


School Answering Machine

Hello! You have reached the automated answering service of your child's school. In order to assist you in connecting to the right staff member, please listen to all options before making a selection:

To lie about why your child is absent, Press 1.

To make excuses for why your child did not do his/her homework, Press 2.

To complain about what we do, Press 3.

To verbally abuse our staff members, Press 4.

To ask why you did not get needed information that was already enclosed in your newsletter and several bulletins mailed to you, Press 5.

If you want us to raise your child, Press 6.

If you want to reach out and touch, slap or hit someone, Press 7.

To request another teacher for the third time this year, Press 8.

To complain about bus transportation, Press 9.

To complain about school lunches, Press 0.

If you realize that this is the real world and your child must be accountable/responsible for his/her own behavior, class work, homework, and that it is not the teacher's fault for your child's lack of effort, please hang up and have a nice day!!

Coltrane ignores Roscoe

Coltrane ignores Roscoe
Originally uploaded by jonesrestoration

This picture pretty much sums up the first meeting of Coltrane and Roscoe. I thought it was interesting that the dog next door to Matt's mom's house was named the name everyone seems to think our dog should be called. Ironically, we did not name Coltrane after Roscoe P. from the Dukes of Hazzard, but after John Coltrane. (We are musicians, after all. )

We thought he would be so happy to have a kindred spirit. A kindred breed. When I walked out on the patio, our dog was just sitting there almost waiting for approval to go visit. When I said to go, he just looked at me. He was so not impressed. Oh, well, we tried to find him a friend. He is a mama's boy.

We had a great time seeing moms. Spent the night with Mamaw, kids swam, Mamaw watched the kids while Matt and I both went to our choral director's meetings. That is another story...

Mom and I met to go to my favorite store....the Bargain Boutique. This is the Junior League of Jackson's thrift store. I love it! I always feel like I am treasure hunting. I found tons for $70.00. I agree with Dave Ramsey...even if we were rolling in the dough, I think I would still love finding bargains. Especially new ones with the tags still on. I also love that it goes to a good cause. Bonus.

Today's service at church was great! We are praying for revival at church and I really see God moving. I got to sing with two wonderful singers. It was a treat. We have such a great preacher. He just always seems to bring a message right from God's heart.

Anyway, hope your Sunday is great! Take care......

Wow, a lot of people are looking for Denny Terrio

Since I added sitemeter to my blog I have been able to see how people end up at our site. It is so interesting. A while back, I made a comment about how I needed judges for our school's upcoming talent show and that I wondered where Denny Terrio was. I think the majority of people come to our site because we came up on their google search for Denny Terrio. Then they stay about 0 seconds. I hated to disappoint them so I thought I would try to search for him myself and post something about him. I have to admit, what I found really took me back to (I think) Friday nights of my childhood. Dance Fever....wow! I can't believe how often I probably watched this. Maybe this is why I am such the dancer that I am. :) Here is a link to Youtube where you can see the Dance Fever closing. I so remember watching this on so many nights. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7LugIpub2w












http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/mikeatkost/main.html

Sorry, Mom, I know you were expecting a big update from our life. I am actually only unwinding from a big day and ....talking about Denny Terrio. I could be talking about how school is going great. I love my schedule. Choir is great. I am excited about what I am teaching, etc.

I could be talking about the ginormous spider that was right outside our door while we were coming in the other night. While Matthew was keeping his eyes on it while I opened the door with my key, the garage light went out. Claire wanted to keep it as a pet, but Matt flushed it.

I could have talked about the fact that I got a call tonight from my former choral director asking Matt and me to be in the Oxford Civic Chorus. I would love to sing that quality of music again!

I could have mentioned that the kids are loving school.

Anyway...I want to say that I miss our mommies. Hopefully, we will get to see them this weekend. It has been too long.

Happy Monday, everyone.

In Christ,
Laurie

Goin' Campin'

Well, tomorrow night the youth are going to Cossar for a camping trip. I am excited about getting to go on Saturday night. I love being with the youth. They are so youthful. (hee, hee)
I am excited about the group we've got. We prayed for a great youth group for Matthew for his last 3 years at home. Playing guitar with them has, I believe, been such a blessing. Big Matt has been sitting in with the whole praise band lately. I love it.

This week has been good. Choir is great. There are 26 kids in my choir this year. There are even guys. They are such good sports. It is a challenge to try to show them what to sing being a woman. This is probably one of the biggest challenges right now. I appreciate their patience, though.

Development at home.....Benjamin, for some reason, has become fired up about loading and unloading the dishwasher. It is his passion. He is very dedicated to this job. He sure has won his dad's and my appreciation. :) Just FYI.

I wanted to share this artist with you. Diane Duda is an artist from Pennsylvania who makes the cutest and most original pictures. Here is one that is on sale at Ebay. She also has work in her Etsy shop. She is super talented. I love her work so much because I love the 3D aspect of them. She uses multi-media to make some of her pictures, etc. If you click on the picture of the little girl you will go to Diane Ebay auctions. Enjoy!

Here is one I actually won on Ebay. I love it. If you like frogs, she really has painted/drawn some cute ones. Anyway, I just wanted to share her work.
I hope you all have a great weekend. In Christ,
Laurie

In the Weeds

This was a term we used a lot to describe a time in the restaurant business when we were totally swamped with tables, etc.

School starts tomorrow and for Matt and me, in the weeds is how we feel most of the time once we are in school (planning and teaching, grading, etc. We are so blessed to have our jobs. We are so blessed to have our family. Both of our jobs are the type of jobs that take a lot of planning ahead. Planning ahead for concerts, field trips, etc. It is exciting most of the time. It is exciting seeing kids learn things about themselves, and teaching them things that, you believe, will benefit them in the future.

Nevertheless, it is very taxing on the energy. This year we are, again, going in separate directions. Matt will take all of our 4 kids with him to school, and I will drive 45 minutes to Potts Camp. This will be interesting. I have already had mixed feelings. On one hand, I had a little feeling in my stomach of missing my guys whom I drove to work with everyday last year. If I wanted to see them, all I had to do was to peek into their classroom. If I forgot lunch money, or snack, all I had to do was to bring it later in the day. Now I am passing the torch on to my sweet husband. I hope he will be able to get more done than I did in the afternoon. He is a little better at managing our kids than I am. I try my best, but I am still a little of a Pillsbury Dough Girl. They think I am very soft. I think Matt will do great.

I did enjoy my drive for the past two days going to staff development meetings. Part of me feels bad for enjoying time to myself, but I know it will be good for me to have time and then have more to give them when I get home. God knows best. I will trust Him that He knows that this is what we (the kids, Matt, and me) need.

I probably won't be blogging quite as much unless I am procrastinating (which may happen at times). I think when things slow down and we get into the swing of things, I want to continue our recording, etc. I don't want to give up on that.

We are beginning Financial Peace at our church in a couple of weeks. I think we may go through it again to get back on track. We really want to save for a car, pay cash, but it has been tough. It seems like with a family it is so hard to get the jump on saving money. After listening every Friday afternoon, I know people get out of debt. I think we need the refresher course.

I am asking that you please say a little prayer for us if you are reading this. Please pray that we will grow to be the people God wants us to be and that we will be the parents and teachers God wants us to be. I know we can do all things through Him who gives us strength. Please pray that we will know what to be involved in and what to say no to. I tend to do many things because of guilt instead of definitely feeling God calling me.

Matt sang "Captured" this morning in church. This is a song that Chris Tomlin sang a while back. It made me have such a desire to sing with him more and more. I know that is not exactly what God is calling us to at the moment. I believe, while our kids are young, that we have a stable home....not a lot of travel or late nights. I am excited about the future, though. It is amazing how God has you in different seasons of life and they are all good.

Anyway, I know I am rambling. Happy Sunday!