Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It's God's gift from start to finish! We don't play the major role. If we did, we'd probably go around bragging that we'd done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.
Ephesians 2:7-10 The Message

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Jury Duty

Today I was summoned for Jury Duty. Butch was summoned Monday but his was cancelled so he didn't have to drive in. Mine, yeah, not cancelled. So I had to drive the hour to Tonopah and report for jury duty.

I know some people really enjoy jury duty, but me, not so much. So I drove in, praying all the way that they wouldn't pick me, or better yet would pick their 12 jurors before they even got to my name. Well guess what...

I checked in and waited until they called the jury pool into the court room. The judge tells us he has good news and bad news. The bad news was we wouldn't get to listen to a trial, the good news, the case was settled and we could all go home.

So...I drove an hour each direction, with no other errands to take care of while I was there, for nothing. We live 5 miles short of the mileage reimbursement so I may or may not get a check in the mail for mileage (Butch did last time he went). I felt like half my day was just wasted:( So was 1/4 tank of gas (sigh) At least I wasn't one of the ones from Beatty! That's almost 2 hours:)

But the good news is we get to go away for a week without the kids next week!

Monday, January 26, 2009

Big Close to My Heart Clearance Sale starts today!

If you are looking for some great deals on Close to My Heart products, then this sale is for you! Items will be 40% off and will include a little but of everything. Paper, stamps, and accessories, oh my!

It starts at 7 AM Pacific time, TODAY!

Don't miss out, items will go fast. Check out the sale here.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Who would have thought...

Who would have thought that one family of 5, living in a 1000 square foot house, could find SO MUCH STUFF! Wow. I knew we had a lot of stuff to get rid of but when I started setting up for Grady's sale I realized just how much there was.



We sold a lot today, but there is still a ton left over. I didn't even ask anybody at church if they wanted to donate anything to the sale. I am sure glad I didn't because I don't know where we would have put it all!

He made about 1/2 of what he has left to raise. We are down the the last $550! If you want to help him out send me an e-mail and I let you know how you can get a donation to him. Or if you know us and have our address, you can just send it:D

Thanks for your support and prayers for him to go on this trip to Washington DC. He is pretty excited about the opportunity.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Pitching & Purging!

It never ceases to amaze me how much stuff we accumulate. Grady still has about $1000 to raise for his trip to Washington DC so we decided to have a garage sale.

I have spent the past 4 days going through cupboards and closets, drawers and boxes still not unpacked from our move 3 years ago. We have been taking everything we don't want or need out to the church's Annex building. Today I went out with another load of stuff and Oh my, how much stuff there is!

You don't realize how much you have collected until you decide it's time to get rid of stuff. I have one more cupboard in my bathroom to go through; that is a place where I have put things I didn't know what else to do with:) Our house may be small but our master bathroom is HUGE!

It is so freeing to get rid of things though. Whatever doesn't sell is NOT coming back in the house. We are going to load up the Yukon and take it the Goodwill when we go to our Getaway the first week of February.

Now let's just hope that our junk IS someone else's treasure and he makes a dent in that last $1000:)

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Soon to be a new driver

Well, Grady is now driving legally, at least learning to drive legally! He passed the written test yesterday and now has his permit. A little scary:) Butch let him drive the big red truck to the
dump and back today.

He made him take the back road though so he only had to drive on the highway for a short time. And since it was the big truck he didn't drive 70. That truck doesn't do well going that fast! He doesn't have to take driver's ed because we don't live where it is offered. He just has to log 100 hours of driving time. Not hard to do when everyhting is so far away.

So, maybe the next time we take a trip into Fallon or Reno we'll let Grady drive. Maybe....

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

A Quiet Week

Is there such a thing? This week has been fairly quiet. Not a lot happening in Round Mountain these days.

This is finals week for all 3 kids. Grady and Spencer, being in High School, have half days. Becca, in Middle School, gets the privilige of going the full day. I don't know why they all don't get a half day, Oh well:)

Friday Grady will go down to Tonopah and take the written test to get his learner's permit. I told Butch he gets to teach him to drive. This will give Grady his state issued ID for his trip to Washington DC as well.

We are sorting through everything in the house to get ready for Grady's garage sale next weekend. We have so much stuff that we haven't touched in 3 years I figure maybe someone else could benefit from it. (Some of it is still in the boxes it moved here in:)

I have a Faithbook Class scheduled for this coming Saturday. This has been such a good project for me, really helping me see how God has been at work in my life, even when I didn't acknowledge Him. I pray that those in the class would be drawn closer to Him through this experience. I need to spend some time working on a few more of my pages before Saturday, but since everyone is at a different place in their album I think I'll be OK with getting just a couple of the next layouts done.

We've been studying Romans in Bible Study. I never tire of the book of Romans. You have the theology, Salvation, and how to live for God. My favorite chapter is Romans 12, where it talks about not conforming to the world but being transformed by the renewing of your mind. Those verses have been on mind a lot lately as we have pondered how to better reach the people of Round Mountain. We see a lot of people living in the world despite proclaiming a faith in Jesus Christ. It breaks our heart to see people continually choose the world over Jesus Christ.

Several years ago I adopted Deuteronomy 30:19-20 as my Life's verse. It says, in a nutshell, "Choose Life." I pray that the people here would choose life, by choosing to Love God, obey him, and commit themsleves firmly to Him. Everyday I wake up, I have a choice to make. To choose life I must embrace what God has for me each day. I must live my life for God, every day. Not just when I want to, but even when I don't to. Not giving in to the desires of the flesh.

Oh, that you would choose life -- every single moment of every single day.

This was the page for My Life's verse in my faithbook. I chose the song "Choose Life" by Big Tent Revival to further illustrate the verse.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Maybe it's not so cold here...

Wow, I just checked the VM Alaska blog and in Nenana it was -50 on the 3rd. 24 degrees seems like a heat wave now. I am thankful we are here and not there, whew!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Just another day really, but it was my day, so I did what I wanted to do instead of what I had to do. That's the best kind of day! Chicken Fajitas for dinner and Chocolate Cake for dessert. Yum!



And, we finally got a break from the cold. Yesterday we barely got up to 24 degrees, and the wind chill made it feel like about 10 degrees. Today we made it up to 51 degrees, warmer than Las Vegas (that doesn't happen very often.) So it was a beautiful spring like day for me. Wahoo!

Sunday, January 4, 2009

We're Home!

Well, it has been an interesting vacation but we finally made it home today. I say interesting because first we got a flat on the Yukon last Sunday. We are praising God that it happened in Butch's mom's driveway and not in the middle of an intersection. We needed new tires anyway but were hoping to hold off until February. Not happening! We put new tires on the Yukon on Monday.

Tuesday I had lunch with a couple of friends from high school and borrowed my mom's car. Butch took the kids out to spend their Christmas money. When he pulled into the mall parking lot there was a horrible screeching noise. Turns out the berrings were bad, and had been going out for a few months. So a friend helped him replace those. Again we are praising God that this happened at my mom's where he could do the work himself and not somewhere in between.

Needless to say, it was an expensive vacation!

We didn't have any really bad weather, either going to or returning from Washington. Thank the Lord for that. With all the car troubles we did leave later than planned and didn't make it back in time for church this morning. But it was a refreshing visit, for that we are truly thankful.

Keep praying for us.