November 24, 2008 at 6:34 (Simple Living)
Today is day 2 of the challenge our pastor gave us this week. Here are my next 10!
1. Peppermint Tea
2. The creativity to make “Crafty Things”
3. My Kitchen
4. My Bed
5. Clean Water
6. Nutritious Food
7. The beautiful flowers my husband got me
8. The Rain
9. God’s unconditional love
10. Snickerdoodle Coffee
November 23, 2008 at 6:34 (Simple Living)
This morning at church our pastor talked about us being more thankful for the little things in life and to not have such a high expectation of what we can give thanks for. He challenged us to write 10 things we are thankful for everyday for the next five days until Thanksgiving. This is day one so here are my 10 for today.
1. My relationship with my Lord and Savior
2 My amazing husband
3. My wonderful family
4. Kara, Jamie, Charla, Amie, Debbie, and Stephanie
5. My job
6. The food on our table everyday
7. The roof that is over my head
8. A car that runs and gets me to where I need to go
9. The cool weather
10. The fire that heats our house
What are you thankful for today?
November 12, 2008 at 6:34 (Simple Living)
Something to see
Something to taste
Something to smell
Something to keep warm
Something to cleanse with
Something to moisturize with
Something to share
October 6, 2008 at 6:34 (From the Kitchen, Frugal Frenzy, Natural Household Cleaners, Simple Living)
Do you have a cleaning product that you just absolutely love? Mine is the swiffer line. They are so so easy to use and work great. After a meal or just in the middle of the day, I can pull it out and start cleaning my floors. They look like I got on my hands and knees and had been srubbing for days. Well maybe not, but they do look good. The down side of using the Swiffer and the Swiffer Wet Jet is that you have to buy refills, which I don’t like so much. A box of refills can cost as much as $8.00 some times more. That is only for the dry ones, then you have to pay for the Wet Jet refills. Not only are they expensive but they are wasteful, just like paper towels.
The solution?…
You got it! A plain white t-shirt. (or any color!) How does it work? Well, it is simple. Just take some old t-shirts and cut them the same size as a swiffer refill cloth. Keep them in a drawer or a container in the laundry room or wherever, and when you need to clean up your floors quickly, just pull out a t shirt rag, insert it onto the pole thingy and swiffer away! You can use this method for both the wet and dry swiffer. I also made up a cleaning solution so that I don’t have to buy the refill cleaner for the wet jet. When I am done with the rag I place it in an empty yogurt container with the lid snapped on until laundry day. I hope this works for you! Happy Cleaning! 
September 27, 2008 at 6:34 (Frugal Frenzy, Simple Living)
I have been trying very hard to reduce our grocery bill over the past few weeks. I have done a great job so far. Planning our meals and using what we have on hand I have saved an average of $15.00 a week on food!
Every year come Chirstmas time, we are panicing over money and how we will afford to buy presents for everyone, buying food for dinners, baking cookies because I want to , and getting some new ornaments to decorate our tree. Now some people will think they have a great solution to this problem, which would be to buy gifts earlier and not all at one time. That is a great idea and one that we love, however we don’t ever have the extra money to do that. This year we decided that we would really make an effort to spread out our gift purchases over 3 months as opposed to the 3 weeks before Chirstmas.
I looked at my calender and counted the weeks till Chirstmas. We have about 13 weeks until the big day, which is going to come up quicker than I think. I want Chirstmas to be a time of celebration, joy, and happiness, not a time of stressing over money! I think people get so caught up in how much money they have to spend at Chirstmas. I feel alot of times people don’t give gifts anymore out of love, but out of obligation. I don’t want to feel that way this year. Every gift that we purchase this year, I want to be out of love. I don’t want us to be stressing over money, but buying each gift with a joyful and happy heart. I am not saying we don’t have to budget out money and be careful about how much money we spend, but I do want us to enjoy every penny we spend.
So, how does this tie into me buying groceries and saving money? Well that’s just it, I am saving money in one area of our budget that can be used somewhere else, like Christmas! From now until Chrsitmas, I will go grocery shopping 13 times. That gives me the opportunity to save an average of $15.00 13 times!! Which means I could potentially save $195.00. We can take that money I saved on groceries and put in towards Christmas allowing us to enjoy buying our gifts even more!
We aren’t getting any extra money for Christmas we are just being wise about how we spend the money God has already given us. Take a look at your family’s budget and see where you can save a little here and little there. You never know, you might be able to save $195.00 too! Happy Christmas shopping to you all!
September 21, 2008 at 6:34 (His Voice, Simple Living)
I was touched this morning at church in a way that I haven’t felt in a long time. The Holy Spirit just took hold of me and wrapped me in His arms. His presence this morning was so sweet and calming to me. I was encouraged today as we sang during worship. I lifted my voice up to Him and opened my arms to let Him in, saying, ”God, I give it all to you!”
We sang an awesome song called Glorious One, by Steve Fee. The chorus says:
“Glorious One, Glorious One! Light of the world, You out shine the sun, King of all Kings, eternity sings. Glorious One!”
My heart was heavy this morning. I was sad. I felt alone. I thought, “Why God? Why not now? What are you waiting for because I am ready?”
The band was playing and Jared was singing the verses and when we got to the chorus I just cried out, “Glorious One, Glorious One…” the words barely came out of my mouth as the tears ran down my face. At that moment all the darkness, hurt, pain, and sadness, was lifted from me. Even in times of sadness, God is still my Light, and He out shines every bit of darkness I walk into. My God is greater than anything and everything I feel and think. He is the Glorious One! The song goes on the say,” There is no one more beautiful. There is no one more wonderful!” Isn’t that so true? When things aren’t going as we planned and life starts to get ugly, I look to my God and in the midst of the “ugliness” I can see Beauty.
We started a new series today titled God of this City, and our pastor’s message today was great, and I will talk more about that another time. There is a song with that same title by Chris Tomlin, which we also sang this morning. The tears just flowed as I continued to worship to this song. The words hit me in two ways, one was for the church and the other was for me personally. God is doing great things in our city, but greater things are coming!
Part of the Chorus:
“Greater things have yet to come, Greater things are still to be in this city”
One Verse:
You’re the Lord of Creation
The Creator of all things
You’re the King above all Kings
You Are
You’re the strength in our weakness
You’re the love to the broken
You’re the joy in the sadness
You Are
For the church: It was so moving to be singing about our city and how God has all these great things planned
For me personnaly: I know he is the Lord of creation and will create ALL things. When I am weak, He is my strength. When I am broken, He is there to love. When I am sad, He is my joy. It is so easy for me to say something like, “Its all in God’s timing and His perfect plan for life.” But sometimes it is hard for me to really believe that in my heart. He has already “created” what I desire and long for and in this time of waiting when I sometimes feel, weak, broken, and sad, I can remember what I sang about today. God was telling me this morning, “Hannah, Greater things have yet to come, and greater things are still to be done. Don’t be weak, for greater things have yet to come. Don’t be broken, for greater things are still to come. Don’t be sad, for greater things are still to be done in you!”
Thank you God for speaking this into my life and for encouraging me to look ahead at the greater things that are coming. While I wait for You to deliver, be my strength, be my love, and be my joy. I praise You for being the Light that I need, You are the Glorious One, the Glrorious One!
September 2, 2008 at 6:34 (Hospitality, Party Planning, Simple Living)
We had our first “Dinner Party” tonight in our new house. My sister and her family came over as well as my mom. I was struggling with what I was going to make, and what we would do, and so on and so on. Why was I so worried about this? It was my family and they were coming over for dinner. Plain and simple. I finally convinced my self that is wasn’t worth worrying over. There is a book I want to read called Practicing Hospitality, the Joy of Serving Others. It talks about how to be hospitable in a Godly way. That is what I had to remind myself of tonight. Of course I wanted them to leave saying how great my tacos made with homemade tortillas were but more importantly I hope they left feeling the love of Christ.
August 18, 2008 at 6:34 (Simple Living, Uncategorized)
We are moving into our new house this weekend. I can’t wait. God has truly blessed us with this home and we want to give it back to Him. We started packing a couple weeks ago and got alot done last night. Brantley has been so busy with school and work that he hasn’t had much time to help. It was way more fun packing with him than by myself. We were able to talk about where we out the items in our new home and how we would decorate. We also went to Home Depot last night to dream about all the things we want for our new. Some of things we will be able to get soon, others probably never!
