A Beautiful Tuesday morning and a prayer request

Today I spent most of my time with the Lord praying for my son Matthew. He left on June 1st for Ft. Jackson South Carolina to attend classes so he could take his GED as he never finished high school and got a diploma. Since he has been gone he has called 4 times that I missed his call and finally on Sunday I was home when he called so the first time I had talked with him since he left. I have received a letter each week from him, but it's not the same as talking with him. When I talked with him on Sunday he sounded good but a little down as he has passed all of the tests for the GED except for the english part, doesn't suprise me at all he never did well in english. The bad part is he has one more chance to pass and then if he doesn't he will just be sent home, no going on to basic training no active duty in the Army for him and I am so worried about what he will do if he doesn't pass. Today I was lifting my son up to the Lord and praying first that he will pass the english part of the test but also praying that if that doesn't happen that HE would show Matthew what the next step in his path should be. If any of you out there would~please pray for my son I would so greatly appreciate it.

Today's sunrise was just beautiful, I know it doesn't look all that great with a power line going through it but I just love the look of the sky when the sun comes out....






It's 7AM here and my morning chores and cleaning chores are done for the day, basically I am free until time to make dinner. I plan on spending some time sewing and embroidering.

I am praying that everyone has a wonderful Tuesday...

Blessings,Joann

Wonderful giveaway

My very nice friend DeNiece is having a giveaway over at her blog Stop by and visit here and enter her giveaway. She is a true Christian woman with a heart for the Lord.

I am Excited....

When I walked into Church today I was very excited to see a bulletin and sign up sheet for a Woman's Bible Study. Our Church is very small, when we first started going about 6 years ago there were only about 30 people and now I would guess there are close to 100 so we have been definately growing. When it was smaller there was really not enough people to do an actual seperate Bible Study, but now since we have gotten bigger they are starting one. It starts this coming Thursday and the book they are doing was one I have been wanting to do. The book is called "Having a Mary heart in a Martha world".~




I already have the book as I was supposed to do the study with my wonderful friends that I had met online and had known for about 2 years until the one (supposed)friend of mine decided she no longer wanted to be friends with me, with still to this day no reason or at least not letting me in on why..so because of this the other 3 pepople decided that I shouldn't be allowed to join in the study, even though there was NO reason for this person not wanting me there. I guess just because she said she didn't want me to do it that was enough. Please be careful out there people, when you think you meet nice people online, they may end up being "wolves in sheeps clothing". These very nice "Christian" people really showed there true Christianity to me..as sisters in Christ they thought it appropriate to just cut me out without even one person having the guts to tell me WHY, that was all I ever asked for...tell me the horrible thing that I did to make people who are supposed to be Christians basically hate me...
Anyway now I have another opportunity to do the study and I am excited. I am also doing the "Becoming a Titus 2 woman" with 2 very nice Christian ladies that I met through my blog, they are genuine Christians and I will have so much fun doing both of these studies.

My other excitement is that my wonderful husband had ordered me a new printer and it got here on Friday, he hooked it up for me on Saturday and now I can return to printing things out for my HMB and finally put up a post about how mine is organized. My Home Management Binder is very different than most that I find out ther online as I have no children at home and I don't homeschool. Mainly it is made up of things I want to print out that I feel are important for being a Keeper at Home. So look for that post hopefully sometime this week. I am also readjusting my daily routines. I had been getting up at 3:30AM with Roger and then seeing him off to work and then doing all of my daily things and then staying up but I was just so tired everyday and then by the end of the week it would all catch up with me and I was just exhausted. So I am going to try something new starting tomorrow and will let you all know how it works out.

Here is what the new printer looks like~ When it arrived on Friday~




And here it is all hooked up, it's so cool~

My new quiet time area

Since we have gotten our back yard pretty much done and the mornings are so nice and cool. We moved our large table and chairs to the back patio a couple of days ago. We plan on eating out there when the weather isn't too hot, but the main reason for moving it back there was that I wanted to use it for my quiet time. I usually weed for about 20-30 minutes every morning around 5:45AM the sun isn't up yet but there is light. I realized just how quiet and cool it was when I was done weeding and me and Molly would just sit out there for a while, enjoying the sound of the birds. I thought that this would be a perfect place for my Bible reading. So I asked Roger if we could move the big table from the front and put it back here so I would have some where to place things like my little prayer journal, my current Bible Study book and of course my Bible. It works perfectly, Molly enjoys being out there with me and will go sit in one of the planters where the sun hits and I can sit there as long as I want to enjoy my time with the Lord. The patio area stays shady all day until about 6PM and then it has sun for only a short amount of time and by the time Roger gets home it is shady enough to eat out there. I have been spending an extra amount of time in the Word this past week and have gleened so much from it.

So here is a picture of my new quiet area, it's not a corner but it is a place where I feel so close to the Lord~






Here are my books, and Bible~





I also have updated pictures of our dining area, I took whatever I already had on the wall in there and sanded and repainted..I also changed out the picture in the frame, that I painted green, above the quilt shelf..can you believe it's just a gift bag from the dollar store that I cut and it put in there, it fit beautifully. The shelf with the hearts on it is one that I had picked up from a garage sale a few weeks back and I painted it black. The quilt shelf used to be an oak color and I just sanded it and painted it black also and it turned out pretty nice. The little picture to the left of the quilt shelf is one that I found at the thrift store it too was oak colored and I painted it green. I still have the frame of the bulletin board to paint and the little cabinet that is a light color. They will both be painted hopefully by this next week. I am planning on painting the cabinet black and green and the frame of the bulletin board black. Now I just need to get the binding on my little wall hanging to hand on the quilt shelf and the room will be finished. I am still looking for things to put on the little heart shelf, I found the salt and pepper shakers at the thrift store for 50 cents each. I also got the heart crocks at the thrift store for 20 cents each...not sure what else I want to put on there it just doesn't look right to me yet.

So here are the pictures~

The wall with the things painted~





The whole dining area~


Blessings,Joann

Weigh in Wednesday

It is Wednesday so that means a Weight Watchers meeting. I had a loss today of only
.2 so since I had gained .2 last week I am back where I was a couple of weeks ago. My total lost so far is 45 pounds. I was kind of expecting a gain since we went out to dinner on Saturday night and I had steak and shrimp!

I have made some more changes in the dining area, did some spray painting of some of the items I already had. Now I am currently working on the shower curtain for the hallway bathroom.

I have also been working on my Home Management Binder but for the past week I have had no printer, guess mine got worn out!! Roger ordered me one but it hasn't come yet. There are some things I want to get printed out before I share it with you all.

Blessings,Joann

Monday Jennifer and the kids came by for a visit. They had stopped at the mall and Katie got her ears pierced, she kept pointing to her ears and saying "I like earrings"
Here she is with her new pretty earrings~



Dylan and her played for quite a while~





Dylan made this tower and he wanted his picture taken with it~




All too soon it was time to go, they were all buckled up and I looked in the car door and seen Katie taking a drink out of this huge cup almost as big as she was!!



The whole time they were here Oreo was hiding but as soon as they left he found one of his favorite places to stretch out~





when we bought our new table the other day, we bought the table and one bench thinking that we would buy 3 chairs later when I found the ones I wanted and that way we would have 3 chairs and one long bench. After getting home and seeing what the bench was like we decided at least for the time being that we will just get another bench and forget about the chairs for now. The bench is actually quite comfortable...So I went and picked up another bench and now it is all situated where I want it. I wasn't sure if I wanted to use the rug I had under the other table so I tried it both ways and finally after moving things around quite a bit I decided to use the rug. I have always liked the color and style of rug so really wanted to use it if I could.

Here is the new table and benches~

Looking from the kitchen~




Looking from the living room~




This is the exact table I have always wanted, just a regular old farmhouse table. I am very happy with it and I love the color of it.

This fabric is some of what I am using to re-do our hallway bathroom, I am working on some projects for the bathroom this week so hopefully will have some pictures by the end of the week of what it looks like.




Blessings,Joann

Saturday Roger and I drove over to see Jennifer's new apartment in Brentwood. It's about 60 or so miles from here. They have a real nice place and I am proud of the fact that she has it all decorated and everything put away already. I know that I have tried to stress the importance of striving to be a Proverbs 31/ Titus 2 woman and she seems to have picked up on the fact that it's important to have an organized and clean home. They moved in a week ago and with two little ones I know it can be hard to get everything done.They did have a 2 bedroom apartment here where we live but they were wanting some more space so they found this 3 bedroom for the same price that they were paying here for the two bedroom. I don't like the fact that they are so far away but it is at least close enough to drive over once in a while. Rent here is so expensive here it's just riduculous, their 2 bedroom small apartment was $850 a month. Who can afford that much when you are working for basically minimum wage!!

Here are some pictures of her new home~

Dylan's new bed~




This is the blanket that I made for him and his new little pencil shelf...isn't it cute??~




This is Katie in her new room~




The blanket that I made Katie~




This is Jennifer and Chris's room~





Here is the left side of the kitchen~




This is the right side of the kitchen~




The reason we were going over there on Saturday evening was to go out to dinner for Father's day we ended up going to Applebee's and the food was great...

Jennifer and Roger~




Here is a picture of Roger with Katie~




And of course a picture of me with Katie~




I also have to show this cute little picture of Katie sitting on her couch with her legs crossed, such a little lady!!




They didn't have a dinning room table so on the drive home Roger and I talked about it and we decided to give them our table and chairs and get ourselves a new set. I was wanting to get something darker than what we had...we found the perfect thing and I will be posting pictures of it real soon.We loaded up our table and chairs and took it over to them on Sunday evening. We ended up having a very busy weekend but it was very nice to be able to visit with Jennifer and her family.

Jennifer brought the kids by today and I have picture from that but will have to wait for another post, maybe tomorrow...

Blessings,Joann

Our little princess

I took this little video yesterday when we went over and visited Jennifer and her family. Dylan was at his Dad's for the weekend but we were entertained by our little princess Katie by her putting a dancing show on for us...Isn't she just the cutest!!!
She has a little piano that you can press a key and it plays a variety of songs. She was starting to get a little dizzy at the end but still cute as a button...

Enjoy~

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Another shopping trip to Joann's

Have I ever mentioned the fact that Joann's is one of my favorite stores. Maybe it's because it has the same name as me :)

When I came home the other day and showed Roger what I had purchased I mentioned that the thread was 50% off and that it was a real good deal. So being the most wonderful husband he said I should go back and get some more so of course I did!!

THis shopping trip I also picked up some fabric too and I ended up with 12 spools of beautiful thread...





I hope everyone has a very blessed weekend. I am feeling so much better and plan to be back to blogging more consistently come Monday Morning. Thank you so much to all who either left comments or sent e-mails, it's nice to have such nice friends and to be missed...

Blessings,Joann

The very long transformation of our backyard

Roger bought our current home way back in 1987(I think??) I only moved in here 10 years ago. We have changed so many things in that 10 years but they all seemed to take so much time. The backyard was one of those changes. In our backyard when I moved in the back patio was partially screened in with some walls, and there were two sheds the size of garages. One of those sheds keeps Roger's old Chevy pickup, the other one is where his utility trailer was stored.

We decided finally in 2005 to start to redo the back yard. We had a company come in and tear down our back fence and take out the shed where the trailer was stored. It was a mess!! For quiet a while we had no back fence, and since we live with a park/school behind us it wasn't that fun to have people be able to just look right in to our yard. We did get a new fence put up, it's a 7' chain link with gray privacy slats in it and we love it. When it gets dirty you can just hose it off and it looks real nice.

We lived with just a dirt backyard for many years and just recently started focusing on it more. We had many projects around the house going on so it took some time. Roger took out all of the walls that were enclosing the patio and it makes it so much more open out there. The patio we are lucky enough goes from one end of the house to the other, lots of room.

So anyway I have some pictures(I took pictures of the older pictures as they aren't digital and my scanner isn't working) to share with you of the process~

Here is what the East side of our yard(this shed is where Roger's truck is) looked like back in 2005~







Here it is when we were getting it ready to plant grass~








This is what it looks like now (yes the shed is still there)~



Here is what the west side of the yard looked like~



After the shed was removed~





This is what it looks like now~




This is the south side of our yard back then~





The new chain link fence~




The south side now~






Here is looking toward the house from the back of the yard with the walls of the enclosed patio~





Here it is all open ~




Here are some pictures of the plants that were recently planted. I bought all of these plants last week and then ended up getting sick so they are going in slowly. Roger has planted almost all of them, he still needs to put the rest of the Photinia bushes along the back fence. I planted the snapdragons around our tree.

Geraniums on either side of the waterfall~



The west side planter with Blue plumbagoes ~



The tree One year old~



The snapdragons around the base of the tree~



The new camellia bush~



Hope you all enjoyed the very long tour of our new back yard. I still have many plans for things back there but they will all come in time.

Blessings,Joann

STILL not feeling well, but it is Weigh in Wednesday!!

Today being a Wednesday I went to my Weight Watcher's meeting this morning @ 9AM. I had a small gain but was kind of expecting it. So this weeks GAIN is .2 pounds so now my grand total is 44.8 pounds. I have been really struggling this past few weeks. I seem to want to snack all the time. With not feeling well I have not been eating the right things or the right times, but just mainly snacking.

I went to Joann's after my meeting this morning, they are having a real good sale and that seemed to lift my spirits, just seeing all that pretty fabric and all. Got some real cool stuff

2~ crib sized 80/20 cotton batting

21~ Fat Quarters in all kinds of colors

6~ spools of cotton Gutermann thread,Black, Blue, Red, White and 2 off white (I love this thread)

A New Rotary cutter by Fiskars

2 Yards of Khaki colored Kona Cotton

5 yards of fusible interfacing

1 small quilt border template

and a remnant of white fabric with blue and red stars on it.

Here is what it all looks like~






Yesterday I was very excited to see the UPS truck pull up at our home, I was waiting for some books I had ordered to arrive. I ordered 2 books by Martha Peace~




I have heard very good things about both books. I have already started reading the "Becoming a Titus 2 Woman" and I am doing the Bible study part with a friend. The other book is called "Attitueds of a Transformed heart" which is centered around the verse Romans 12:2


while I was out the other day I just had to take a picture of this street sign ~You have to click on the picture to actually read the signs~




is this confusing or what??? I know what street is what but if I wasn't from here I would have no idea what they even mean. This intersection has 4 streets that meet but when they meet they change names!!! So where it says Briggsmore Ave. and Orangeburg Ave. they look like they go the same direction but in reality they run opposite...

I have lots more to write about and more pictures to share especially the backyard update but I am just still not feeling too well. I haven't been on the computer very much at all the last week. I am hoping that by next Monday I will be back in full force and get you all caught up with what I have been up to.

Blessings,Joann