Oh my, half the month is gone already! Alright, it is not that I have lost the love for sharing my life with you, it is just finding a good minute to tell you all that is going on, is well, hard to find. So much is going on! I am fine tuning better ways to be efficient and economical. I am progressing with our kindergarten scope and sequence, while fine tuning the Sunday school lesson for my new Kindergarten/1st grade class. Yep! I am a sunday school teacher once again. Cookin' and stitchin'! Fighting the clutter in the house! Scratching some time out each day to be stronger in the Word with a Beth Moore Study. I know soon it will slow down! Here is a quick summary and I will get back very soon with more details!

Homemaking 101 for the professionals!
I will tell you, just 6 months ago I would have told you, you were crazy to think I would wear that title with honor. Wow, God is opening my eyes on hw this is the most challanging and rewarding, whie be sooo overlooked and frowned apon.

Getting economical! I have heard about an idea of once a month cooking. I couldn't really figured how it related or how to make it fit for me. Well out of desperation of the 5 pm hour sneaking up on me, I checked out a book called Freezer Investments at the library. Wow! June 9th I cooked for my family an entire month of dinners in 1 day! I did have a since of pride for the entire week and as each day began to come to an end, a since of relief came with it. That night's dinner only required me to thaw and heat. Th amazing part about the whole deal was that I started at 7 am, finished at 5 pm, I had everything put away and cleaned, dinner on the table, 28 dinners in the feezer, and 8 meals for a family in need. My approximate monthly savings by cooking once a month is $120. Cool!

Now I am so excited because it has freed me up time to make cookies! and when I say cookies, I mean about 4 batches at a time. WHY? Because you can freeze them too. This left me time to experiment in bread making. Boy, oh boy I found a winner of a recipe. I will be sharing wit you soon. I will no longer need to buy a loaf of bread. From measure to cooling in 2 hours. That is quicker than recovering from a head ache obtained from an emergancy grocery run.

In the economics of home making, I found out cooking all at one time saves money and makes life easier. Cooking from scratch and in big batches, allows you the economic benefits, plus makes it user friendly.

great once a month ideas: www.freezerchicks.blogspot.com


Homeschooling
Well in the dead heat of south florida living, what do you do? I grew up here. I remember spending days either in the pond or closing the house up as dark as possible with air low and the movies going with an endless pop of popcorn. But we were not 4 either. So what do you do, hmm, just start school so you can be done for the year at the nicest time of the year! Yep, we are in full swing of starting our kindergarten year in the middle of June. All is going well so far. I have been in debate about which curriculum to use.

Last year we did Abeka for PreK and it was hitting a wall for me. #1 did fine with it, but I was so overwhelmed in the prep work that I often just could not follow through with it. In discussion with a few vetern homeschooling moms, I moved to the fundamentals provided by the workbooks you can buy at SAM'S Club. Wow are they right. It works out good, because I got a great feel on how to break up my lessons from Abeka, now I use the workbooks as the fundamentals and then I am becoming well known at the new local teacher supply store in town.

On a side note, go meet your local teacher supply store! Our is Mrs C's! What a blessing, they are staffed by teachers. You can get ideas from them and get pointed in the right direction. I really have to recommend this for parents that do not homeschool. This is where you want to go, if you kid is having problems. For anywhere at $3 - $25, you can get workbooks, mini-lesson plans, or my favorite centers to aid a concept that is not connecting or just build mastery. The centers is like a game board style of activity that is hands-on that requires little to no writing. It is much like practising the concept.

I get great lesson/craft ideas from: www.notimeforflashcards.com

So we are moving along in this!

Sunday School
God has once again blessed me to teach Sunday school. This time it is with the kindergarten/ first grade group. It is an exiting experience that I hope to begin sharing. A big part of the sharing process is that there is very little accessible information on how different Sunday School teachers suppliment and compliment the lifeway products. For example, this week is about Daniel pleasing God by obeying God's commendments of unclean food. Well I like to through a craft to help them out in the memory verse. So I am using the cutting pages on Wonder time, the picnic theme for the kids to cut and paste and I am then adding the verse to it. This way we can reinforce the memory verse and the story in Daniel. I can't wait to share more with you, as God opens my eyes to use this world for His glory.

Stitchin'
I have been using the appliques from my cricut to make cute and easy bags as a gift.. I fill post pics and instructions soon.

Beth Moore - Daniel Bible study!
The front cover says," Lives of Integrity, Words of Prophecy". If you have the oppurtunity to participate int this study! Get there quick! WOW! Any eye opening experience in the world we live in. a little insight: Babylon is the nation than daniel and the other captives are taken to. Babylon is a trend setter in that current time, being seduced and saturated in "It's all about me, overindulgencing in any desire" The premium of importance is obvious in the desription of who they took as capitives: the young, the beautiful, the intelligent.

Isiah 47:8-10, even foretells of Babylon, "I am, and there is no one besides me". In our culture today, these descriptions are hauntingly familiar. Every commercial, product packaging, sitcom is a demonstration to provoke disatisfaction and the desire to have more or better, with the underlying undertone, You deserve it!

Well as a stay at home moms and knowing other stay at home moms, god center and some not. It is an everyday accurance to hear some one sing to me that you need a break, it's time for me. Singing the "what about me". How unfortunite, that Satan has been able to use our culture and the culture desire, youth, beauty, and success as a way to taunt the stay at home mom, making the outer world seperate from the inner sanctuary of our home. God has opened my eyes that: a mother's job is servitude! It is our honor that our mission field is within our doors. We have the most demanding job, we can raise fortunes in frugalness our squander our family to be pennyless. We can create hamony, or create a world of walking on eggshells and discontent. We are the ones that decide, will the door that separates the outer world from the inner be a desired retreat for our loved ones or will it be a place of persicution.

Ohh, my final words are heavy. We must take back our homes and push the world out of them. There must be one place that our family members know that it is safe and secure. The cupcakes are done and sleep must come!
God Bless
~t