With Thanksgiving being tomorrow I want to take a moment to list a few things I am thankful for.

1. My Husband

Including both dating years and marriage I have been with this man 20 years, and I am praying that I will be blessed with many more.

2. My son Thomas

My eldest child has taken up running this year and I have so enjoyed coaching him along the way. After his first race he told me  “mom I stayed behind this boy on the 5K because he kept on going the wrong way and I was afraid he would get lost” .  I tear up every time I think of that.

3. My Son Aiden

My middle child and I connect over frugality and music. I love cranking up Toby Mac when its just he and I in the car. He has me compare prices and search for discount codes before he makes any purchases, which makes my heart all a flutter with mommy love.

4. My Daughter Courtney

People always say this child looks like me but this year she  started gained her womanly curves and now she is mini me . She also has my giving heart and I love watching her create things to give to her friends.

5. My Friends

I couldn’t find a picture with all of my friends, but truthfully I am blessed to the point I don’t know if all of them would fit in one photo anyways. Without a mom around anymore, my friends mean that much more to me, they pick me up when I down, smack me down when I get too high on myself, laugh with me, cry with me, and are always there when I need them.

6. My Snail Pace Readers

I cherish every comment on the blog, every e-mail subscriber , RRS feed reader and every facebook like and comment. Not because it symbols growth but because it means you value what I have to say, and that makes me want to write more and get to know you better.

7. Family Memories

It was so great to finally see Disney World and Florida, all five of us had never been, but more important than seeing it was the memories we made. I don’t think I will ever forget the magical evening spent watching the fireworks over the castle that I had seen in my living room on TV every week growing up.

8. Spontaneous Family Time

Some of my favorite family memories are of those trips we took on a whim. Nothing says I love you more than dropping your To Do list  for a day and spending it together instead.

9. God’s Creation

One of my favorite parts of being a runner and a cyclist is drinking in the surrounding nature. I am in awe of much that I see and often wonder how people could deny there is a creator when they view the vast complexity of all that surrounds us.

10. God’s Provision

God never ceases to amaze me in how He provides for my family in small ways, like the hangers I have always wanted,  to big ways like  providing enough money for new tires the month before the roads begin to get hazardous.

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This is our home away from home for 4 nights this week.

Our lives have been extremely busy these last few weeks.

School has started up again, and since we homeschool that meant a lot of preparation for me.

One of our rentals become available and we decided to try to sell it, leading to a 40 hour work week for me, filling holes, sanding, painting, shoveling mulch into neglected flower beds, and cleaning windows.

I fit those 40 hours around the schooling needs of my 3 children, by getting up at 4 am each morning to get the bulk of the work done before the kids needed me.

By Friday last week I was exhausted and did not know how I was going to get our own home ready for the house sitter, and pack for our trip by Monday morning.

Somehow,only 30 minutes later than planed, and with several piles of clutter stuffed into my master bedroom to deal with later, my family of five pulled out on our first out of state camping trip.

I am thankful. Thankful to put the hard work aside for a week. Thankful to be able to explore new areas during my early morning runs. Thankful to be able to enjoy a few quiet hours each day writing at a nearby Starbucks as the family hangs out at the campground. Thankful not to have to worry about marking school books, or teaching science. Thankful to have time to enjoy my family and slow the speed of life for just a while. Thankful that God provided the provisions for a tent trailer for my family.

My family is blessed, and I intended to reflect on just that this week, as I take time to relax.

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28 ESV)

This post is shared at Finer Things Fridays at The Finer Things in Life

Our New Haircuts!

 On Tuesday, the kids and I had plans to go to with friends to a local water park but the plans fell apart due to thunderstorms in our area.

Sometimes however, plans can quickly be replaced with opportunities.

In this case I saw a chance to grab some one on time with my middle child Aiden.

Chick-Fil-A his favorite!

My youngest and my eldest children are…..well…loud. My middle child, is quiet.

When we go out as a family it is always him I am afraid to lose. Not because he wanders off, but because he doesn’t say much so therefore it could be a while till I notice he is gone.

It’s his quiet nature that makes me cherish the chances I get to go out just he and I.

I can finally hear his voice, hear his opinions, find out who he is really becoming.

This boy, besides the quiet nature (so not me) is much like me and therefore needs my guidance in how to wisely handle his talents and downfalls.

He  and I  love not just listening to music, but dissecting the lyrics, which, leads to conversations in how what we listen to can effect our thoughts and behaviors therefore we need to be cautious about what we listen to.

He and I  love food,which leads to conversations in the pitfalls of over indulgence and the need for nutritional balance.

He  and I have a sarcastic wit. Oh how I wish he did not inherit this trait, the heart ache I have caused myself and others with my sarcasm is immeasurable, yet I also know it can bring others laughter when I use it right. Hopefully, perhaps, I can teach him to learn safe sarcasm boundaries quicker than I did.

Thank you Lord for the gift of Aiden. Thank you for an opportunity to spend the afternoon with him. May I never forget that out of  failed plans often come opportunities.

A man’s heart plans his way: but the LORD directs his steps. (Proverbs 16:9)

This post linked to Thankful Thursdays at The Marathon Mom, Finer Things Fridays at The Finer Things in Life

I grew up in on an island surround by ocean. I was never farther than a 15 minute drive to the beach.

I spent many an evening swimming at the miles and miles of beach that surrounded my town . I spent hours collecting sand dollars and sea glass. My sister and I held crab races.

I Love the Feeling of Sand in My Toes

Then I meet a man who took me miles away from it all. For a while we lived near several lakes, and they were beautiful in their own way, but they were not the ocean.I didn’t like that I could still see the land on the other side. The sand was more like gravel than granules. The beach fronts were small, certainly not miles and miles long like I was use too.

The good news was I could still visit my ocean town at least a few times a year, it was a full days travel by car, but it was possible.

Then he took me further and further away, to the land of corn and soy beans. The lakes around here are more like ponds, actually most of them are man made ponds

It’s no longer a fulls day drive to my ocean town, now its full days plane ride, and not something our family can afford to do. I began to develop a craving to see open water, but was sad to realize my chances were slim.

One day my man, knowing my ocean sickness treated me to a surprise, he introduced me to the shores of  Lake Michigan, which have now become my ocean substitute.

The smell of the air is wrong, and I miss the salt water on my skin, yet my feet love the sand, and my eyes love to feast on the miles and miles of open water.

Its become a habit of mine to wake up one morning during the summer and announce “today’s the day”  “today is beach day”.

I wake up my night owl family, and being the early bird I am I run circles around them packing coolers and beach chairs as they wipe the sleep from their eyes.

I place breakfast in their hands and guide them to their seats before the sun is even fully in the sky, and I love every minute of it. I love the spontaneity, I love tossing the day to day for a day and remembering how to live in the moment.

Thank you Lord, for the gift of spontaneity and for the shores of Lake Michigan my beach away from the beach.

This post is linked to Finer things Fridays at The Finer Things in Life

A while ago long time ago. I mentioned that we are renovating our downstairs bathroom.

My husband has been doing all of the work up until last weekend, when he finally announced the words that made me giddy “the bathroom is ready for you to paint”.

I wasn’t giddy about painting, but what happened after painting, finally we would get our second toilet back.

I never realized how many times my family uses the toilet in one day, till I was forced to live with just one toilet!

I started painting Saturday. I got the whole room prepped and  primed in just over an hour. I gave the room several hours to dry and then applied the first coat of color that night before bed. Both coats had turned out fabulous.

I got home from church on Sunday ready to conquer the second coat and feeling pretty proud of my painting self! Even envisioning ” semi-professional painter” added to my name (not professional yet cause there was still the odd paint in the hair issue)…. then it happened.

God never lets me get too high on the ladder of pridefulness before He knocks me down.

I had the paint out and was all ready to go, and reached over to grab a sip of my flavored water before I began when instead of grabbing the water, I knocked the entire glass of it all over the floor.

I was just a few moments into cleaning up that mess when I felt something sticky on the bottom of my foot. I turned around to discover I had knocked over the small cup of paint I had poured for edging.

Upstairs I went to the closet holding the rags to clean the mess, only to discover on my return trip that even though I had wiped my foot off, it was leaving foot prints all over the laminate floor.

Determined not to give up I cleaned up the mess and returned to painting. The painting went very smoothly, until I removed the plastic I had used to protect the floor from spills.

Turns out that while cleaning up the mess early I had somehow put a rip in  the floor covering in  the exact spot I had spilled the paint,  and paint had seeped through and had been sitting soaking and drying for over an hour.

Knowing how hard my husband had worked to install the new flooring I said a quick “help me Lord” prayer and started to scrape off the paint.

Luckily it came all up except in the grout lines. I again sent up a brief “help me Lord” prayer and when I opened my eyes I saw a piece of sandpaper in the corner of the room.

I spent the next 15 minutes madly sanding paint off grout and repeating to myself ‘I will be humble, I shall not boast”.

Before

After

Once I had it all cleaned up  you could never tell the mess I made. There is just one small spot of paint that could not be sanded off the grout but you really have to look for it.

Which led me to thinking isn’t that just like God. He brings our sins to our attention and once we have confessed them He wipes the slate clean, and creates beauty from our ashes (or paint spills).

Yes sometimes He leaves a spot, but He leaves it there with the intention of using it to work through us to help others through the same struggles: Or to give someone the joy of laughter when you talk about the day you spilt the paint.

Thank you Lord, for keeping me in line. For reminding me I am a work in process.

“Before destruction is pride, And before stumbling — a haughty spirit.’“ Proverbs 16:18

This post is linked to Thankful Thursdays at The Marathon Mom, Weekend Whatever at Not Consumed

Now that it is summer, my front porch is where you will find me in the cool of the morning. I am an early bird by nature. I slid out of it as a teenager, then back into it as a college student, out of it as a new mom, and then in to it again when those babies started sleeping.

I don’t need to set an alarm, although I do for the morning I wake up at 4:35 to meet some crazy running friends to run, since I am scared I might sleep late.The other 6 days of the week,  I awaken naturally between 4:30 and 5:30 and on rare occasions I might sleep in until 6:30 (gasp I know how late! LOL).

Mornings seem to be a widely talked about subject lately, 4tunate is trying them out for the first time, Money Saving Mom is sold out on them,  and Laura Vanderkam recently released an e-book on the topic.

I love mornings I am so thankful that I am a morning person. I have time to fill my wife tank, my mommy tank, my friend tank and my stranger tank, all to overflowing before anyone even asks for a drop from them.

However, here is something I want you who are not morning people to know. If your a night owl, like my hubby, I don’t want to convert you.

If you can fuel your tanks up in the quiet hours of the night when the little ones are sleeping (and us early birds too) then stick with it.

I know from being married to a night owl and having many of you as close friends, that you late owls can really burn the midnight owl and get a lot done, including spending time in prayer and bible study.

Night owls and morning birds, lets give thanks. Thanks to God that he created us each as unique beings. He knows when it is best for us to meet with Him and refuel our tanks. We simple need to slow down and listen for His call.

Lord I thank you for calling me early out of bed. Forgive me for times when I try to fill those precious early morning  moments with “To Do’s ” right from the get go. May I always take time to sit with you a while, and let your presence fill my soul.

“Be still and know that I am God” Psalm 46:10a

This post is linked to Thankful Thursdays at The Marathon Mom , Finer Things Fridays at The Finer Things in Life

I don’t think there is a day when chocolate does not pass by my lips. Sometimes it is in cookies, sometimes in smoothies, sometime in trail mix,, sometimes in cake,sometimes  icing on the cake and lets not forget it in its pure and simple bar form; preferably dark.

Chocolate and me are best buddies. We go way back. I don’t remember a time of my life without chocolate.

I am always on the hunt for more ways to spend time with chocolate. I have an entire Pinterest board devoted to recipes that could increase my chocolate intake.

So today, I want to say thanks Lord for giving us chocolate.

“Taste and see that the LORD is good” Psalm 34:8a

This post is linked to Thankful Thursdays at The Marathon Mom

 The me of the past :I am a creature of habit. I like plain cake with plain icing with perhaps a few candies on top for decor. I don’t do theme cakes.

The me of the present: I am a creature of habit. I like plain cake with plain icing with perhaps a few candies on top for decor, BUT I have a little girl who loves theme cakes and for her I will give it a shot.

However, I need a bit of inspiration courage.

I have read the blog Life As Mom since it started out as FishMama, and year after year I have been intrigued by her themed cakes for her loved ones birthdays.

With FishMama as my muse I set out to make my daughter a pool themed birthday cake.

It didn’t start out too well. I took the wacky cake out of the oven and let it cool and came back to find a huge sunken middle. I was about to panic when I remembered  the sunken middle would actually help considering the theme.

The hole  became the pool, and was filled to the brim with blue colored icing.

After intense discussion it was decided by our family that Sour Patch Kids should act as the pools visitors and they should lay on Foot By The Roll towels and  laze around in the pool in Life Savers Gummies inner tubes.

Here is the finished product and my daughter was thrilled with my less than professional cake decorating skills. All her friends seemed to think it was pretty neat too.

So today, I want to say thanks Fish Mamma from Life As Mom. Thanks for inspiring me, to be more creative as a mom.

 That way they can mentor young women to love their husbands and children, (Titus2:4 Common English Bible)

This post is linked to Finer Things Fridays at The Finer things in Life