Thursday, November 26, 2009

Happy Thanksgiving!!

I pray that everyone has a very blessed Thanksgiving. Ours will be a very simple one, with just the basics...we aren't fancy smancy people all the other days and to me Thanksgiving is no different. We will be using paper plates with Turkeys on them, I am making a simple meal, Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean casserole and green salad, also some rolls..will post a picture of my preparations later on it will be very funny :)

I am so thankful that we live in a country that is FREE! I am thankful for my God and for my husband and children and for those friends that I have known for many years and for the friends I am just now getting to know.

I am also very Thankful for the fact that I know I am Forgiven~



Blessings to you all on this very thankful day!

Joann

Friday, November 20, 2009

Nov. 20, 1999 ~ Nov. 20 2009 at OneTrueMedia.com

Today November 20, 2009 marks Mine and Roger's 10th year anniversary. I wanted to share with you all some of the pictures from our wedding. We were blessed with the fact that Roger's brother is a pastor and performed the ceremony for us. I love Roger with all my heart and believe God brought us together. Our song for our first dance was to the old Country song KEEPER OF THE STARS, we both loved that song. The song for the dance with my father was BUTTERFLY KISSES it was a magical day and I remember it always. We have been through some rough times and some really great times. Roger was there the night I got the call that my brother was hit by a drunk driver and passed away. He was there the morning when my Mom called and said something is wrong with Dad, he is always there to support me no matter how horrible the circumstances are. He is my Rock, my provider, and my LOVE!!


HAPPY ANNIVERSARY ROGER!!






Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Unforgiveness.........Part one

I know kind of a strange title! For those of you who have been reading my blog for some time now will know exactly what I am talking about when I mention having had a problem with a person who was once my friend. I was friends with this person and 3 others for oh about 3 years. This person ended our friendship and I still don't know why. I have gone through all the feelings of trying to get over what she has done to me, and what the others have done. I think maybe they feel to shun me because she doesn't want to be friends is okay but it is not. Anyway I don't want to get too far off the topic of unforgiveness...It is very hard for me to make a long story short so I would totally understand if you quit reading right here....this will be long!!

The other day I was talking with Roger on the phone while he was driving home from work and we were talking about this person~ I will call her J~ he was telling me I just need to get over it and not let what she did bother me so much. I told him I was getting better at it, I used to get up in the morning and think about J all day long trying to figure out what I did wrong and why she wouldn't tell me. This has tormented me daily but lately I really thought I was getting better about it, only thinking of J a few times a week. Then it hit me!!!! When I was talking to Roger about this that day I started to say something and can't remember exactly what it was but the following part I do remember because I couldn't even speak I just stopped and cried. That part was me telling Roger that "I wish I could just get over it but I can't because I just....and this is where I stopped talking, Roger had thought the cell phone had cut out but in fact it was just me realizing what was wrong. What I was going to say if I could have finished was "...I just Hate her so much and will never forgive her for what she has done to me and to my life." Now I know you are probably wondering why this bothers me so much. So someone doesn't want to be friends anymore so I should get over it and get on with my life. That is so much easier said than done. I have prayed many times about this, said I forgave her, apologized for what I did wrong (even though there has never been any time she has said what I did) but that was all just words. I didn't forgive her, not truly, not in my heart. I was hurting and she was the cause of it. One thing that also really hurt me was that the other women~ I will call them A, B, S they were my friends too but as soon as J decided to end the friendship they did too, why??? They never once contacted me to see how I was doing, nor find out what I had done to have all this happen they just sided with J. I did get an e-mail from both B and S only asking to not be put in the middle, did they not understand that I was not the only one putting them in the middle, J was doing it too by not giving me and answer.
So now on to the unforgiveness, I have been reading a book lately by Beth Moore called Praying God's Word, there is a whole chapter on unforgiveness. The more I read the more I realized that this was exactly what I was doing! There are many quotes in the chapter, but this one I was just really drawn to states~

Withholding forgiveness until an offender understands or acknowledges the emotional pain they have inflicted is a subtle form of revenge. Why? Because it's hoping that the offender would hurt a little too, in order to understand. But this type of revenge robs you of your freedom and allows the offender to keep control of YOU.





That just says it all, and it is so right! I want J to hurt just as much as she has hurt me!!!!But I need to realize that J has never understood or acknowledged the emotional pain she has put me through and basically she doesn't care.

Many people have either commented about this subject in the past or sent me e-mails about me not letting her steal my JOY, and this is exactly what I have been letting her do.

Some of the things in the book talk about how we need to Pray about the person we need to forgive
"A very important part of breaking free is learning to pray about the person and also for her." "What do I mean by praying about them? I mean learning to tell on them to God. Yes, I'm talking about tattling."
"Does it sound like vented anger, whining, complaining, and tattling to you? It is. And we, too are invited to bring our complaints to God when we are overwhelmed.Psalm 64:1 David said, "hear me, O God, as I voice my complaint."

Okay that is enough rambling for today, I am just exhausted thinking about this all, so much good info in this book. I will share more but right now I am still at the place of Praying about her to my God whose peace passes all understanding :)


Blessings,Joann

MY FAVORITE CHRISTMAS SONG

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Stocking up the pantry and the start of Christmas decorating!

I read a couple of posts the other day about stocking up on canned goods over at MRS. M'S BLOG and I remembered seeing Green Giant canned goods on sale for 50cents a can at Walmart. On Monday I went over and bought 10 cans each of niblets corn and sweet peas. They didn't have any green beans in the Green Giant brand but they did have DelMonte for 64cents a can, I normally pay up to $1.25 a can for them so this was a good deal. I bought 10 Cans of the green beans as well. We are now set for quite some time as it is just me and Roger so things like this last us quite a while.

Here they are all unpacked and sitting on the counter~





And here they are all organzied in the pantry~




This past weekend I had Roger get all of our Christmas decorations out of the shed and I brought them into the house, I know it seems kind of early to be decorating for Christmas BUT MY Mattie will be coming home and just seeing the Christmas decorations up makes me think of him coming home (31 days to go till he gets here!. I figure next year he may be deployed for Chirstmas so this year is going to be the best Christmas ever, I will have all my family home and that is such a blessing.!


This is the start of the decorating, everyday I plan on doing a little~



I know it isn't much but it is a start :)


I have also been reading a book by Beth Moore and have read some very interesting things about UNFORGIVENESS, I plan on posting a few thoughts on this in the near future. It is really an eye opener!! I needed to read this and take some action about some unforgiveness that I have toward some people, the Lord is helping me along with this and I will tell you all about my journey...

Blessings,Joann

Thank You Veronica

Yesterday in the mail I recieved this very beautiful bed pocket from VERONICA




I had entered into a giveaway she was having and I was lucky enough to win. I thank you very much Veronica, and will treasure it always, the colors are so pretty and you do such beautiful work.

Blessings, Joann

Sunday, November 15, 2009

I have the MOST Wonderful HUSBAND!!!!

This coming Friday Roger and I will be celebrating our 10th Anniversary :). Yesterday Roger went out shopping for my gift and he went ahead and gave it to me last night for a few reasons.

First let me show you what my Wonderful husband bought me~





I have always wanted an Emerald and Diamond ring because for me it is very significant. These two stones are the Birthstones for my children. Jennifer's birthday is in May so that would be the Emerald. Matthew's birthday is in April and that would be the Diamond.

The reason he gave it to me early is that it needs to be sized and he knows that we have an appointment on Friday evening to get out 10th Anniversary picture taken and he wanted me to have it for the picture.

Right now it only fits on my wedding ring finger as you can see in the following picture~






I want to wear it on my right hand probably on my middle finger as I already have a very pretty Diamond ring that Roger gave me for our 5th Anniversary on my Right hand ring finger. So Bright and Early Monday morning I am taking it in the get it sized and I should have it back by Wednesday or Thursday. But if something should come up and I don't get it back in time for the picture that will be okay too.

I am so happy with the gift he got me not only because it is beautiful but because he actually listened to me talking about it for the past few years about wanting one.


I love him so much and am so happy to be his Wife and helpmeet.


Blessings,Joann

Saturday, November 14, 2009

My Keeper at Home Binder

Well ladies I have finally got my Keeper at Home Binder in good enough shape to show you all. I did have this very huge binder~






full of all kinds of articles and anything that I liked the subject on I printed it out and put it in my binder. Well that binder just kept growing and growing and soon I never even opened it. It wasn't that I didn't want to it was just so big it was too hard to lug it around with me. I was keeping it on the kitchen counter and it even got too big and gawdy looking to keep there. So I decided it was time to look at downsizing it. For me to use it every day it really only needed daily things, not every article I have ever read and liked. I bought me a nice new purple 1" binder and got to work today on doing a make over. I love to make things coordinate so since Christmas is coming up I got some really cute paper to print things on. I also got my page protectors out, and so it started~






These are the things included in my Binder~




The front of my New Keeper At Home Binder~





When you first open it you will find my zipper pouch~Purple of course!!




These articles are from Candy's blog and I reccommend them to anyone out there who truly wants to he a Home Keeper.



A woman's Rules to live by~From the blog of Candy at Keeping the Home



What is a Lady?~ From the blog of Candy at Keeping the home



Then the tabs~

My Tabs~



Now remember what is in my binder is not necessarily what you would have in your binder. You will notice I have no children's sections as we have no children at home anymore. My tabs are labeled with the following categories~ Cleaning, Friend info, Home keeping, spiritual, and addresses. I bought the type of tabs that you can write on and then erase if you want to so those categories may be changing :) The spiritual section is where I put articles I like to read, I have definately downsized what is in this binder, I will be keeping the rest of the articles in another binder just for articles that I print out and find helpful.


First comes the cleaning section~

This first page is a page I have used numerous times in the past, it is from Candy's blog of which I really like lots of the helpful homekeeping posts, check out her site it's just full of wonderful articles.

Emergency Quick Clean~From the blog of Candy at Keeping the home

Next would be my personal chore lists, both daily and weekly, I have changed them up a bit modeling them after something I read in the book I am reading for the Fall Book Club at Sugar Pie Farm House, I am still doing the task cleaning which for me works the best but now I have it listed by room.

Daily Chore list~




Weekly Chore lists~



Next Friend info tab~

The tabs that say Friend info are for writing info I think is pertinent to me, there names, names of husbands, children. Their Birthday's Anniversary's and if I send a gift to them what I sent, also their blog info.



The next section is the labeled Home Keeping this is where I put anything that will help me in being a good Keeper of MY home

The Joyful Christian Homemaker~From The blog of Candy at Keeping the Home


I also keep my Master grocery list, have to have that to be a good Home Keeper :) I print them up about 10 at a time and when Thursday comes around I just take out one of the sheets and I highlight the items I need, so far this is working great


My Master grocery Lists~



Next Tab is labeled Spiritual~

This next article is on Modesty and I found it very good, I see what some of the women are wearing these days and it's just disgusting to see what low self esteem these women have that they feel the need to dress scantily to draw the attention to themselves. We want people to look to our heart and not our body!!


An article that I really enjoyed reading on Modesty~From the website Christian Moms of Many blessings



These next articles are from Revive our hearts and I also found these very informational and fun to read.

Becoming a Woman of virtue article~From the website Revive our hearts




Some more spiritual articles I found to be beneficial to me~ From the website Revive our hearts




And Look how much smaller it is~




I will start using the new binder on Monday as I am taking the rest of the weekend off to spend some fun time with my husband. I spent most of Saturday working on this binder while Roger was out working in the yard and working on our cars. Tomorrow is a day of relaxation and of course lots of football. Roger is lucky that I love to watch football :)

I would like to thank Katy At The Country blossom Her most recent post about being organized really hit home with me and got me thinking I really needed to make some changes. So Thank you very much Katy :)

Hope everyone is having a Wonderful weekend.....

Blessings,Joann

Friday, November 13, 2009

I am so ready for the Christmas season to get here!!

When I was out today I bought these items to get our home into the Christmas spirit~



I got 3 more of the glade candles, 1 febreeze candle, 3 twin packs of air wick refills, 1 bag of cinnamon scented pinecones, 2 puffs christmas tissues, and 2 air effects spray by febreeze and 2 very cute Christmas pot holders!!


The other day I went out and bought these cute little Christmas trees. I have always wanted a set of trees with lights on them for the front porch and now thanks to a great price ($20) for the set at Big Lots I have them~



I will take a picture of them on the porch after we get them all set up..



The grandkids Christmas presents came yesterday, I ordered them from Toys R Us on Monday and they got here on Thursday. I couldn't believe they came that fast.

Here is both of them~




This is the one for Dylan, the Home Depot work bench~




This is of course for Katie, after all she is a little princess~





This weekend we plan on getting some of our Christmas things out. I don't want to feel like I am bypassing Thanksgiving, but Matthew will be here this year for Christmas and next year he may be either deployed or just living somewhere too far away to come home. So I am going to enjoy this Christmas very much and I want it to start as soon as possible :)

Hope everyone has a very blessed weekend!

Blessings,Joann

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Thursdays This and That!!

Hello everyone out there in blogland. Don't really have much to write about as my life seems to be very boring at the moment :)


I bought this candle (I love candles) about a week ago and love the scent of it~ Apple Cinnamon~




Has anyone seen the Glade commercial that they have out right now about their holiday candles. Well in the commercial the lady lights a candle and the room magically is decorated, a tree appears and there is garland everywhere....Well wonderful blog friends don't you dare believe that commercial!!! I have lit that candle in practically every room of my house and guess what NO magical transformation :) :) No I am not stupid in really thinking that would happen but I can certainly understand children being sucked into the amazement of commercials. Wow light a candle and your whole house becomes a winter wonderland...too bad it isn't reality, how easy that would be...So I guess I will just be happy with the smell of my candle and I plan on getting more of them, they are pretty reasonably priced and like I said I LOVE candles :)

Okay on to something more real. My daughter has just recently started selling Avon (I have a button on my right sidebar that will take you to her web page if you are interested in buying any Avon). I love all of the jewelry and such that they sell as it is always reasonably priced and is very good quality. They also just came out with a new fragrance (I don't usually like their fragrances) it's called In Bloom by Reese Witherspoon and I just fell in love with the scent, it's not too flowery and smells just heavenly. I bought the body spray wich is a little lighter than the perfume and much more reasonably priced. The perfume spray is $39 a bottle a little high in my opinion but the body spray is just $15 and smells just right, not too light and not too strong.
Here is what the bottle looks like~





The bottle for the actual perfume is very pretty but I think this one is just fine, I even sprayed some in my van and now it smells wonderful everytime I drive it :)


I have not been doing much crafting lately as I just haven't been in the mood...but I have been reading a lot, these are the books currently on my end table. I know most people say what books are on their nightstands but I am just not one to read in bed so my books are on my end table the same place I have my Bible that I read daily.

An Amish Christmas (contains 3 short stories)~




This book I have been wanting to read since it came out and our library finally got a copy~








I just started it and am liking it so much I will probably buy my own copy. One of the good things about checking them out at the library first is then I can see if the book is worth purchasing or not. This one is certainly a keeper.


This last book is the one I am currently reading in the Fall book club over at Sugar Pie Farm House, I just love the ladies over there and they all have such wisdom and a heart for God it makes it just oodles of fun being part of their group~






Katy over at COUNTRY BLOSSOM did a wonderful post today about being organized, she is amazing and a woman with such a heart for God, I would love to someday grow up and be more like her :) Go on over and read her post it's very interesting how organized she is....

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Sorry this is so late...

This should have posted this morning. This is one of my favorite songs :)


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Sunday, November 8, 2009

My Weekend....

We had a wonderful weekend. We drove up to here~





On Saturday morning with My daughter Jennifer and her husband. We met up with the rest of my family to celebrate mine and my Mother's birthday's.

When we first got there we walked from our motel down to the lake and took some pictures~


Jennifer and Chris~





Roger and Me~





Roger, Me, Jennifer and Chris~





Then we headed downtown to check out all the shops, we passed these two places along the way~


Harrah's Casino~




Harvey's Casino~



This is the main street Lake Tahoe Blvd.~





There was this real neat looking wooden post with bears on it so I had Roger take my picture with it~





This is what the entire thing looked like~





After walking around for a while we went back to our rooms and got ready to go meet our family at the Lakeside Inn Timber Resaurant for dinner, the food was really good and so was the service. very reasonably priced.





Everyone at dinner~




We did a little gambling but not much as Roger and I really don't like it much. When we got in the van to go back to the motel for the night it was 28' very chilly out but our Motel room was nice and cozy warm. We drove home today stopping at Apple Hill to pick up some really good Apple goodies.

Everyone had a really fun time and enjoyed being together and for my family that is a feat of it's own :)

Hope everyone has a wonderful start to their week and enjoys looking well to the ways of your households....

Blessings,Joann

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Happy Birthday to my Father :)

My father passed away one Sunday morning in March of 2007 sitting on the couch watching the birds outside like he did every morning. I thank God that he passed away so quickly and peacefully but today November 7th is the day I miss him the most. This song sang by Jason Crabb (one of my favorite singers) just really touches my heart. I love the line "But with our family and friends we'll be together once again, we're going to view all of Heaven's splendor hand in hand."

I sure miss you Dad but Heaven is sweeter with you there!!


This was the best video of the song I could find but the first 40 seconds have nothing to do with the song so give it a few seconds.

Enjoy the song







Blessings,Joann

Friday, November 6, 2009

Not a happy Army Mom right now....

I am not the happiest Mom right now ~

My son Matthew (I call him Mattie) called and said he finally got the info for his next duty station. He is at Ft. Knox going to school until the 18th of December then will be going back to Ft. Knox on the 3rd of January, he will be there for an additional 3 weeks of training and then go to the next duty station......and guess where he is going.....Ft. Hood, Texas, he was originally thought to be going to Ft. Carson Colorado, but I guess it changed. I just sat down and cried about this. I know that probably no matter where he would have gone he would eventually be sent overseas to Iraq but Ft. Hood not only is now know for what happened there yesterday but has always been known as the base with the most casualties of the war and the most deployments. This just breaks my heart. Mattie on the other hand is a very proud soldier and really has no problem with being deployed so I am trying very hard to stay strong for him but it is so hard for a Mom to do. He is training to be a Bradley fighting vehicle mechanic and is doing very well so far. I can't wait for him to come home 42 days to go, yes I am counting down.

Please keep him in your prayers, I would certainly appreciate it.



Blessings,Joann

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Please keep the families at Ft. Hood in your prayers

I got a call today from my son at Ft. Knox telling me about the shootings at Ft. Hood. I didn't have the tv on today so didn't know what was going on. My heart goes out to all those families, the first thing I thought was that there were 12 mother's out there getting the horrible news of their child being killed and then the other 31 getting the news that their child was shot. I just can not even imagine how they must be feeling. Please lift all of these families up in prayer today.

I was so happy to hear my son's voice, I know he is on a different base but they were on high security just in case. I so wish I could just hug him today but I can't, 43 days until he comes home for Christmas :)

Blessings,Joann

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

What a wonderful day I had!!

Monday night I had planned out my entire day for Tuesday (My Birthday) I planned on doing NO HOUSEWORK, GO NOWHERE, and basically sit and either read or embroider. Of course I had the daily things that always need to be done but nothing more....

When we got up on Tuesday morning Roger gave me my Birthday card~Yes at 5:30AM~ and inside was a gift card for Joann's fabric store (My absolute favorite store). Funny thing is though is this is the same wonderful man who always seems to be complaining that I have WAAAAAAY to much crafting/sewing things already :) He said he got me the card because he knew it would make me happy. So now my idea of staying home all day went right on out the window. NO way was I going to let a Joann's gift card stay unused for long :)

After showering my Mom and sister called and wished me a happy birthday, okay I am ready to head out the door when the doorbell rings. It is my daughter Jennifer and granddaughter Katie. The first thing Katie said was "Happy birthday Grandma YOU got CAkE!!!" it was so cute. So we visited for a while and then decided to go out for some lunch before they had to head back home. It was such a wonderful suprise for them to come by (they live about an hour and a half from here). They also left me an 8x10 of Katie's 3 year old picture..she is just so cute in it, her smile is so pretty~



Then I found out that all of my books that I had on request at the library were in ALL of them, that is very unusual so I stopped off at the library and picked them up, lots of reading planned as you can tell~






After all of that I finally got to Joann's I found all kinds of fabrics that I just couldn't live without~

Fabric for my craft room window~ The picture isn't that good of it, the color isn't quite what it looks like in person~




This is the window~



New Fabrics~



Christmas Fabric~



Everything I bought~




When I had just got home from shopping my cell phone rang and it was Mattie calling to wish me a happy birthday oh it was so good to hear his voice.


Roger got home and we decided to go out to dinner, to Chili's my favorite restaurant! But before we left we noticed a box sitting by out gate, it was the spray that I had ordered from Joanns.com It is supposed to be a great product for applique and for me I can use all the help I can get :) So that was another good thing on my birthday!





At Chili's I ordered the Monterey CHicken and it was so yummy! I even had a Strawberry Daquiri with whipped creme! And for dessert Roger and I shared one of there Chocolate Molten cakes, oh it was so good and such a perfect ending to a perfectly wonderful day.

Now it's back to just regular old days for another year!!!


Blessings,Joann