Freaky Follower

I have a problem with the following and followers thing on blogs, my own and others.  When I started this blog it gave me a google account, evidently this is different than the one I sign in with using my email address.  I also have another google account because of my church email address and I don't know how many others.  If you notice on my followers, (I only have 10), 3 of those 10 are me and there's another one out there because I chose to follow my pastor's blog and it doesn't look like any of those thumbnails.  On the brightside, I didn't follow my own blog all by myself...my husband helped.  He went to "follow" my blog and the computer was signed in as me.  There are also 2 James' following as well...yes, they are both my husband, go figure.  So really, I only have 6 followers...just pitiful.  And pathetically enough I wanted my pastor's blog to be linked to mine and now he has 2 followers that are the same person...me.  What a dork I am!  I have no idea how to unfollow a blog and still follow with the correct "christy", oh well...

*UPDATE: I got rid of one...lol

5 people

My pastor asked us to do something.  He told us to write down 5 people on a post-it note or in the front of our bible where we would see it and pray for their salvation.  Not a general prayer, such as "Lord, save the lost", but something much more intentional.  Pray for each of them by name, be specific in our prayers, be diligent in praying for them every day...and see God work.  Pray and look for opportunities to reach out to them...but PRAY!  I made my list.  It seems impossible - but nothing is impossible with God!  And after these 5 lives are changed, make a new list with 5 more.  Now get going...pray.

James Study

Today I began a study on the book of James.  It's two verses a day for the next twelve weeks.  I found it on one of the blogs I sorta follow.  Women Living Well is linked to another blog called Good Morning Girls, the James Study is through GMG.  I'm excited to be looking more in depth at the book of James and to share my thoughts and convictions on God's word with other women.  Although I'm not doing things quite like other GMG groups (I'm on my own), I feel this is going to be so worthwhile and beneficial to my walk with God.  Check out these two blogs, they are precious.

An Empty House

Monday, January 10th, I took down all the Christmas decorations.  This was a very sad day for James, he would like me to leave everything up all year around.  He wasn't always like this, he used to care less and even teased me if I put things up too early.  But over the last couple years he has changed.  It does make our home feel quite cozy but I want to keep it special.  James argues that we should keep Christmas special all year which I agree but I want to have that special time set apart to remember my Savior's birth.  It shouldn't matter what we see around our home that makes us think of Jesus and act differently but what's in our heart.  And because He lives inside me I will be mindful of loving people everyday.

I understand James' desire and think it's very sweet, people do act differently during the Christmas season.  But what's done is done and my house looks "empty" the kids would say...I say it looks "clean" and "empty".  It may be empty but it's still full of love. 

The Desk Top Challenge

Here is the before...

James and I both use this desk (mostly James), he uses it for work and for study.  He taught a Sunday school class, a Sunday evening bible study, and preached in one week so he had a lot of things going on here.  There are three bibles, other reference books, etc., a half-full or half-empty (whichever you prefer) cup of coffee, a half can of soda, a used tissue...GROSS!...other junk and our creepy doll.  (she is next to the pen container) Here's a closer look...

I got her for a Secret Santa gift at school one year, still haven't figured that out but James and I have a lot of fun hiding it various places for one another to find.  I put it in his sock drawer - he sticks it in my shoe, I put it in his pillow case (a good one because he didn't find it til the middle of the night, lol) and he put it in my lunch box.  You never know where she is going to show up and give you the heebie jeebies.

This desk actually gets cleaned off quite often but piles up quickly, it is truly a workstation.  Here's the after...

Enjoy.  It won't last long...

My Christmas Miracle

Now that I've blogged about some "useless" things I will get to the good stuff like my Christmas miracle...

My mama told me she loved me...

That may not seem like a big deal to some but it made me cry.  I knew she loved me but it just doesn't get said much especially not first and that's what got me going.  We had a lovely conversation on the phone about everyone getting together at her house on Christmas eve, she was excited, I was excited, and before we said our goodbyes she told me she loved me and I hurredly said it back.  It was the best gift I received this Christmas and I got "Despicable Me" on DVD!  This has been one of the best Christmases and I am so very thankful.

Junk Drawer - Why it's called "Junk"!

The Junk Drawer challenge is a good one....to clean it out would be wonderful and here's why...

Look at that mess, I can hardly shut the drawer and there's stuff falling behind into the abyss.  There are multiple rolls of duct tape, batteries, receipts, panty hose, I could have been wearing those, rats! - I'm guessing they were there to tie up tomatoes, patches for the pool we no longer have, 35 mm film, wow, scraps of material, old broken cell phones, canning lids (I've never canned anything), tons of chargers to various things (I can only guess what they belong to) and who knows what else.  I just snapped this pic this morning...who knows what lies beneath the surface.  To make matters worse, the drawer below it is becoming a junk drawer as well, probably because there are things falling into it.  If you look in the upper left hand corner you can see a plastic tooth, it is a tooth necklace that the school nurse gives a child if they lose a tooth at school.  I was curious to see which son's tooth this was...

It's Cameron's...it has a filling and Christian didn't have any fillings, perhaps it was his last baby tooth and I had trouble letting go.  Well I didn't today, I threw it out, plastic tooth and all.  I haven't cleaned the junk drawer yet but will post something when I do.

I also found 4 broken cell phones and a tangle mess of chargers to various things, I will figure that out later.  And a coupon for a pizza that expired in 2008.

Drum Roll Please...

Wowee!!!

Invasion of the Pepper Snatchers

I love bell peppers in my salad, as I was cutting one up yesterday this was what I discovered...

A green bell pepper growing inside my red one.  The red pepper didn't taste so good so I threw it out and didn't even attempt to try the green one...weird!

52 books in 52 weeks

I couldn't resist the picture.

My cousin, Jennifer, has once again inspired me.  I read her post '52 books in 52 weeks' and thought to myself....I might be able to do 5 + 2...but we will see.

These are the books I can remember that I read last year:

• Crazy Love by Francis Chan
• Captivating by Staci Eldredge
• Your Whole Life by Carol Showalter with Maggie Davis
• Shades of Blue by Karen Kingsbury
• A Prairie Christmas Collection (9 stories) by various authors
• More Than a Carpenter by Josh McDowell (haven't finished though)

Well that's not even close to 52...closer to 2.  But maybe I really did read more than that...I just can't remember, that shows you what an impact they made.

Here are a few I'm going to start with for this challenge:

• When Godly People Do Ungodly Things by Beth Moore
• The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
• Created to Be His Help Meet by Debi Pearl
• Forgotten God by Francis Chan
• Radical by David Platt
• The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (no, I haven't read any of the Lord of the Rings books either but I love the movies, maybe I'll tackle those as well)
• Called to Love by Kaye Miller
• Breaking the Surface by Vicki J. Kuyper
• I'm Not Wonder Woman but God Made Me Wonderful by Sheila Walsh
• Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
• The Robe by Lloyd C. Douglas
• Something by Nicholas Sparks (but not The Notebook, I bawl every time I watch the movie)
• Something by Karen Kingsbury
• Something by Max Lucado
• and maybe a couple off Jenn's list, ha!

I have a lot of these books.  I get old books from garage sales, weeded out books from the church library, or the clearance section at Christian book stores.  I'm working full time now so I don't know when this is going to happen but I'm not going to let that be an excuse.  Of course, I will read my precious bible first and foremost, it's the best book of all because it's God's Holy Word and it's alive!

Thanks Jenn for the challenge, not many read my blog but I want to put a plug in for yours anyway :)
Jenn's blog is called whitetrashmama but I prefer the Classless and Lovin' It.

Awake for over 24 hours...

On New Year's Eve, James and I chaperoned a youth lock-in at our church. It began at 7 pm and lasted until 7 am...I know what you're thinking, crazy people. We are too old to stay up all night, I knew this before but went with it anyway. 116 teens arrived along with 20 to 30 adults. The church booked the christian band "Bread of Stone", they were amazing. They were there early to set up, gave testimonies, played with the youth, loved on them, and gave an awesome concert at midnight to start the new year. They played some mean dodgeball, very competitive. I took tons of pictures, some video, and ate a lot of pizza and other non-good for me foods. The kids played "Minute to Win It" where the winner received VIP tickets for a Toby Mac and Skillet concert and backstage passes. We played "extreme" trivia...this was more than extreme, there was an onion challenge (4 participants had to eat 1/4 of an onion), an soda chugging challenge, and one of the worst - a glass full of blended up Italian dressing, French dressing, Mtn. Dew, and sugar cookies (a girl won that one, booyah!) It was a fun night for the youth and most importantly, decisions for Christ were made.

Check out this band at http://www.breadofstone.com/