A week in our life day 1, Wednesday

I have been wanting to do a day in our life kind of post, but each day of the week is so drastically different from the next I think that making it a day by day week in our life would be the best way to show the thngs I want to show.

Wednesday 2-16
I let everyone wake up slowly and everyone, including me slept in a little bit. I got up at 8 a.m. did my pilates and started breakfast. I went grocery shopping yesterday and got tons of fresh fruits and veggies on clearance. (not as bad as it sounds ; ) so for breakfast I sliced; mangos, apples, kiwi and green and yellow peppers. then we all got dressed and ready for Blue Army, then I spent way too much time talking to one of the other ladys after we got done so we didn't get in the door til noon. We got started with lunch right away, and had sandwiches and snack crackers. After lunch was cleaned up we did our daily chores and got bedrooms cleaned up. Then it was time to get ready for C.C.D. So I quickly cut some fruit and veggies so that when my husband picked the kids up from choir, which they have right after C.C.D. they could come home and make some sandwiches and pull out the fruit and veegies and Voila! dinner. I stayed at church for a parish council meeting and talked to the same lady way to long and didn't walk through the door until almost 11 p.m. Wednesday is always a crazy day with not much in the way of "learning" God bless.

Preach the Gospel at all times. If necessary, use words. - St. Francis of Assisi

so much going on....

wow, long time since I've posted, so much has been going on. The girls have started making a quilt for their beds, and I have been very impressed so far. Ellen has done a lot better then I would have thought. Her quilt will turn out well. I started a new scheduling system for school work, I make a calendar on the computer and list out special things that we will do on the days, like days they will be kitchen helper, the bible theme, if they are to start a new book, and then do a week schedule with the subjects, at the end of the week we staple them together, then at the end of the month we staple it to the calendar and put it to file. Maria has started a new work book. it is a compelte curriculum book and it is pretty nice, we just add on as need. I have been scheduling crazy, but after 3 months of just tring to be loosy goosy with everything, we need it. In January I tried "unschooling" and it was fun at first and it might be for some families, but not us, by March the house was a mess the kids were running around fighting and I had no idea what was going on, I couldn't keep track of anything, so I spent the last 2 weeks orginizing, and scheduling EVERYTHING!! And already you can tell the differnce, we are much better ready to face each day, when we know what the plan is. I really like the meal calendar I made, it makes my day go a lot smoother when I don't have to think about what I will cook. Well that is probably enough for know, I will be posting more often.
Preach the Gospel at all times. If necessary, use words. - St. Francis of Assisi

no internet

due to a snafu at the phone co. when we shut off the phone( and bad service for 2 years with to many snafus to count) we have no internet, and because we live in the country our choices are very limited on co. we can use. so I will be visiting the local library once a week to post. on the plus side, I have gotten tons done.
Preach the Gospel at all times. If necessary, use words. - St. Francis of Assisi

sewing, phones, gratituesday all in one!

Well I will start with my Gratituesday,
I am grateful for so many things it is always hard to chose just one!
I am grateful for the basics, a warm house, lights, food. It is very easy to overlook these "small" things. But unfortunately many people do not have what many of us think of as basics.
Join me ain a quick prayer for them,

Heavenly Father we pray that you watch over all those who will go without food and shelter today, especially children and elderly, protect them and give them the graces they need to make it through their day.
Glory be to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be world without end Amen.


Well we are getting rid of our house phone! I am very nervous about this. I am a person who is always trying to limit the technology in our house. I prefer to hang out and read or talk then to sit in front of the t.v. I do enjoy blogs but really am only on maybe for 10-15 minutes in the morning and then again after the kids go to bed. I finally talked my husband into getting rid of the cable, I can not stand the commercials that are on. Even on the history channel on a Sunday afternoon. I would rather just not watch t.v. Plus I am much more productive without it on. We did not even have internet until about 4 years ago, and the cable we got 2 years ago, and had a contract for 2 years. So when I say finally I mean our contract is up and I talked him into not signing back up. I helped that the fee would have gone up as well and my husband hate to spend money, hehe. But back to the phones, so we have cell phones ( we were the last few Americans that until now did not have cell phones, not even 1) and ported our home number into my line. Which is great because I have my phone number all over the place for my home business and things at church. But I do not like cellphones, they are full of radiation. I am not to keen on radiating my brain. Although I do like my new phone, and all its gadgets. The alarms, calendars, and email are pretty nifty. And it is pink! My husband got a much fancier touch phone with full internet. I went with the one that was free after rebate and the one we got for the kids to share was also free and very simple. But I could not let there not be a phone in the house, so the kids phone is for emergency use only.
Finally to my sewing,  I rearranged my sewing room and for the last week I have had a pile of fabric in my dinning room, so today I started going through it.

 

 

And I am almost done, I had to pile some of back up behind a chair, but at least it is out of the way and neatly piled. I will post more pictures when I am finished.

 Preach the Gospel at all times. If necessary, use words. - St. Francis of Assisi

Common misconceptions about me

Posting about my conversion has got me thinking about the common misconceptions about my life that people have commented on, and I thought I would share them with you.

• That I have long hair because I am religious, I have in fact had long hair most of my life. And have recently decided to stop this cycle I have had where I let my hair grow long and I love it! Then something happens and I get frustrated and cut it. Then I spend the next 6 months hating it. I do like to have long hair because it makes me feel more feminine, and I do think that being proud of being a women please God, but I think women can still be feminine and proud to be the women God made them with short hair.
• That I am a stay at home mom who sews, home schools, cooks from scratch, ect.. because of my faith. I did or wanted to do these things before I found my faith. I tell people I should have lived 85 years ago, because I would have been the perfect 30's housewife.
• We home school for faith reasons, while this is a big reason not the only one. It was just a really nice perk, the main reason was because of educational and social reasons.
• That I don't drink because of my faith, I don't drink because growing up I watched my alcoholic aunt and dad drink,and I still have to deal with my dad's drinking.
• I only wear skirts because of my religion, this again is one of those things that I have always liked, and do because it makes me feel feminine. And I do wear pants from time to time.

Does anyone else have people make assumptions about you when they find out  about your faith? I try to use these times when people make comments to share my faith, but feel it gets old sometimes about things that I think are silly, like how long my hair is for example. I know some religions the women do not cut their hair. But if I feel it brings me closer to God to wear long hair, is it really a big deal to you? I do not say that everyone needs to do it, I simply say it is one of the many ways I try to remind myself to do as God wants. I am sure most of these people are not religious in any way. So I try to be patient when I give my answers. I guess I just need to vent a little, thanks for listening.

Preach the Gospel at all times. If necessary, use words. - St. Francis of Assisi

AHHH!!!

 Well I have joined another home school group from our area, they are very active, meet at different times during the week and you just go to the ones that are things you would like to do and work for your schedule. And from what I've read about the members I think this will be a much better fit for us.
We have not done much school work this week, I gave everyone some handwriting, worksheets and some workbook pages to do. I have been so busy this week and it's only Tuesday, haha. I feel a little guilty when we don't have "school" time each day, but that is part of why we do this to learn in different ways, and different things and to "break" when we need to.
I really need to do some picking up and organizing around here, it drives me bonkers when the house is messy.
I hope to finish my conversion story tonight or tomorrow.
I was just fitted for a tiara, and in case you were wondering i need a big one. so says my youngest daughter.
I will be off to the fabric store soon to get some new patterns and some supplies, I have a lot of sewing to do.
I have decided to hit some up coming craft shows and swap meets to sell my wears, if any one knows of some good ones in the NE area of Illinois let me know.
I have been taking some new pictures for my profile picture, most of them did not turn out. But I think I might use one any way.

Preach the Gospel at all times. If necessary, use words. - St. Francis of Assisi

my life in a post, part 1

I thought it might be nice for people reading this to have some background on my life, so I will do my life in a post. I guess this would also be like my conversion story.
I grew up living with my mom in S.W. Michigan. My dad lived in Illinois, I saw him mostly on holidays and summer breaks. My mom always believed in God, but until recently need not feel the need for organized religion. When I was fresh out of high school, about 3 weeks, I found out I was pregnant I then decided to live with and marry my then boyfriend, although was quick to find out he was, to put it nicely, a loser. Several years, 2 more babies, and a few dozen other girlfriends for him, and 1 more baby that wasn't mine, later I filed for divorce. At the urging of my mom I decided to go and apply at the new IHOP they were building in our area. I got the job and the first week after they opened meet the Manager, who had not been there much because he lived in Iowa and was still working at an IHOP there. Well let me tell you it was LOVE at first sight. 2 months later we moved in together, 2 weeks later we got married.  A short time later we back to Iowa, there was a church 2 doors down that was Luthren, and had a preschool, so we attended very irregular and my youngest went to the school. Now my husband grew up Catholic, but thought it was better that the kids go to a church, if the only other option was no church. We then moved to Wisconsin and the only church in town happened to be Catholic, so we went. I would like to break for a quick second and say growing up my step-sister was Catholic and went to a Catholic school, I was always fascinated with what she learned in religion class, nuns, priests and the sign of the cross. back to the story. My son was in 2nd grade so we signed up all the kids for ccd, which was sunday morning before mass, so we went to church almost every Sunday.  I was going to sign up for rcia but the class had already started and the girl in charge said it was best to start at the beginning of the year. So I decided to to wait. Now I would like to say I was not excited about joining the church, I was doing it more to be the same as the rest of the family. I figured if we ever moved and found a differnet church we would go there. I thought all churches were interchangable. We would go to which ever was closest to our house. So my son took his first communion. I started to take a little interest in the church towards the end of that Spring.  That Summer we moved back to Michigan and I enrolled the kids in Catholic school and I started to kind of like this Catholic thing. But I put off joining rcia because I just didn't feel like going. My middle child was going to take her 1st communion that year, but since the kids went to church in school we did not go alot on Sundays. In the middle of that year we moved to Illionis, we move alot. I knew we needed tofind a church soon so my daughter could make her communion, so with in a week we found a church, which happened to be the church my dad went to as a child. I will take another break to say my dad went to catholic school as a child and took his 1st communion in the Catholic Church. All of which I did not know until we moved here and were church hunting. My dads, dads family was Baptist and his moms family was Mormon and to avoid a fight my grandma decided to raise my dad and my aunt Catholic. So we started to go to that church, and we still do. And I decided to go to rcia. I will break her eso my post is not to long, as the next part is probably to long all by it's self. I will try to finish it this week


Preach the Gospel at all times. If necessary, use words. - St. Francis of Assisi

20 random things about me

I have seen other people do something similar to this and thought it would be fun,

1. I love green olives

2. my favorite saint is St. Martha

3. I try to pray at least a decade of the Rosary a day

4. I quilt/ sew

5. I wear glasses

6. I have a 70lb. lap dog

7. I went to beauty school

8. I don't like bridges

9. I have really long hair, down to my waist

10. I like going to the beach

11. I am conservative

12. I like to bake/ cook

13. I am a scout mom

14. I like to watch Project Runway

15. I am a clean freak

16. I like to play games with my family

17. I'm goofy

18. I like to organize

19. I don't like wet socks

20. OCD Rocks!!!

Well I haven't posted as much as I wanted, but I have been under the weather. A friend of mine told me about pure unfiltered apple cidar vinegar. You drink about 1-2 tsp, mixed in tea or juice. And it really does work I have been feeling better my leaps and bounds since I started drinking it 2 days ago. I almost feel as good as new. We went to the homeschool group, it wasn't quite what I expected. The kids had fun, but it was more like a fun day. The way it was described it was more educational. We might go back from time to time but not every week. I think what I might do is just host some days with other families we know to do fun educational things. After all this is school! I am all for the kids having fun, hanging out with friends and such but when it is school time then I prefer they learn something, and if they can have fun and learn all the better.

Well today we go to a homeschool "group" for the first time. A couple of other families we know go to this group and enjoy it. They do 6 week sessions for their classes. So it switches it up to keep it interesting. I think we will enjoy it. My plan is to post on this blog in the morning before everyone gets up. I will post on both this we did yesterday and things we plan on doing that day. I will also link to fun activies that we have done or want to try. I will probably give you a review of a product, book or movie from time to time. Have  a great day.


BLESSINGS,
Amy

A little bit more about me

Well this is my first post, so I will start out telling you a little bit more about myself. Please forgive any spelling errors, spelling is not my strong suit. I am a 31 yr. old mother to 3 wonderful kids whom I home school. My oldest is a boy whom I will call Pio 12yrs, my middle is a girl whom I will call Maria 11 yrs, and my youngest is a girl whom I will call Clare 8 yrs. (I also have 2 children that my husband had before we met that live with their mothers, K. 17yrs and A. 14yrs.) My children will be starting a blog soon that will be all about there life as home schooled kids. We pretty much have a zoo around here. We have a coon hound dog named Pascal, 2 cats named Magic and Suade, and 3 guinea pigs, Buttercup, Spotty, and Sally. My favorite things to do are sew, read and hang out with my family. I run a sewing business from home, and I do internet orders for any one interested. I teach 2nd grade C.C.D. at my local parish. Please pray for us, we will be making their First Holy Communion this year. I am part of Elizabeth Ministry, which is a great group to join if it is at your parish. I enjoy making my family meals from scratch and canning. I love Jesus and hope that this blog will help spread the love and joy I have for Jesus and the Church to others, and hope it will be a source of encouragement to all who read it.

BLESSINGS,
Amy