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Sunday, July 31, 2011

The bad kind of media


As part of the series "Media Mondays" that I link up to, I am touching on how media affects our lives by distracting us from more important things we should be doing, and sometimes, it's a form of media that is sinful that God does not want us to partake in. Yes, folks, this will be me speaking about pornography. If it's something you think is okay, then I will advise you to stop reading this now.

Porn can affect marriages and destroy families in a relatively short amount of time. Men going to strip clubs, adult stores, and the like are taking away money that could be used for his family, and is also supporting something that is not Christ-like. Now, some of you may use the argument that it can be accessed for free via the internet. While that it true, it doesn't dispel the fact that it could still destroy a marriage just because it's free.


I have seen it way too many times where a man is more interested in the porn than his own wife, and that is not okay. It's degrading and hurtful to his wife, and it causes unnecessary tension in the relationship. That is Satan working his power. He thrives off of people not following God, and he lurks in the shadows waiting to lay claim to another victim.

Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour- Peter 5:8

Do not be deceived, porn can be very devastating to a marriage. It may not appear that way because it's packaged in a pretty box to appeal to us. We are human- it's our nature to be curious about it, and it's that curiosity that gets many people addicted, and I am not talking about just men either. A lot of women have an issue with it as well.

I choose not to have that kind of stuff in my marriage or in my household, and my husband has no desire for it either. He thinks of every woman being in that industry as someone's daughter, and it's just not acceptable to him. We also believe that it's a form of cheating, seeing as how the Bible tells us that we should not lust or see unclean things.

"But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart"- Matthew 5:28

"I will set no unclean thing before my eyes." Psalms 101:3

We need to pray to our Father for this stuff to not hurt marriages, and pray that the people addicted can find a way to God so they can overcome their addiction.

I myself was not always a Christian. It pains me a great deal to say that, but I wasn't. I was engaged to a man before my husband, and his porn addiction made me feel like I had to watch it with him, and spend times in strip clubs as well. He hurt me deeply, but that hurt made me a hundred times stronger to know that I was better than that, and from the moment that relationship ended, I made a vow to never date another man that wasn't great in every way. I refused to settle, and that is when I met my husband.

I am so very blessed to have a strong, faithful, husband not only provides for us, but is also a man of God, and I couldn't ask for anything more.



Saturday, July 30, 2011

Fluff post (pet peeves)

I saw something like this on a friend's blog a while back, and since I have nothing else to post, I figured I would carry on about my top pet peeves. Grab a drink y'all, this could get long.

1) Vulgarity- If every word out of your mouth is an obscenity, I am going to think you need a vocabulary lesson. It does not sound cool, and it does not sound cute at all. On the contrary, it's classless and immature, and makes me want to buy one of these for you:





2) The city- sorry folks, but if I'm going to be in a traffic jam, it be a tractor, man.

3) Rude cashiers- Every single time I go into the gas station in my town, one of the employees is on the phone. They are always distracted by that stupid thing, and more than once, I have had to correct them for a mistake they made due to not paying attention to me- their PAYING customer. Customer service has seriously went down the toilet.

4) Parents that would rather drop their children off every single weekend to go and get drunk. There are far more important things in life than getting wasted. It shouldn't even be a priority to get drunk. I have nothing against a drink or 2, but that is my limit.

5) Non-tippers- listen y'all, if you use a service that keeps you from doing something yourself (waiter, valet, hairdresser, etc) you should tip them. My husband doesn't stand outside and run to get your vehicle (in the 100+ degree humid summers, and the freezing cold winters) for his health. If you can't afford to tip for a COMPLIMENTARY service at a casino, then park in the other lot.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Trying to be healthy







For those of you that know me personally, you know that I am big night owl. I will stay up until 1 or 2am watching tv, surfing the internet, blogging, cleaning, etc. That is my time to unwind and have some peace and quiet.

However, it is not necessarily a good thing, seeing as how it keeps me in bed until 9:30-10am. I would like to start getting up earlier in the morning, actually eating breakfast (which I never do) and just getting my body on a better routine. I am always tired, and I know that is part of the problem.

Along with eating breakfast, I need to lay off the sweet tea, which is the other culprit to why I feel tired all the time. I am a true country girl, and that is my vice. I can drink a gallon a day sometimes. So, it's time for a little less of this:





And time for some more of this:





I am going to try really hard to start doing this. I have done it before, and I always felt great, but I always fall back into my old routine. Once we get moved, I am going to see about getting a treadmill or an elliptical as well.


For now though, I am just going to start to with the first goal of more water, eating right, and an earlier bedtime.


Our people must learn to devote themselves to doing what is good, in order to provide for urgent needs and not live unproductive lives- Titus 3:14

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Patience- I lack it

There is nothing worse than letting me know that I have something great coming to me, but I have to wait on it. It's like handing my 4-year-old a brand new toy, and then saying "Sorry, you can't have that until such-in-such is done." Yes, that would not go over very well.

So, when I got a call from our realtor yesterday informing us that the appraisal still hadn't came back on our current house, I knew what that meant. The closing date is now going to be pushed back because some appraiser wants to dilly-dally. We were FOUR days away from closing on the new house, and that is now down the drain.

We have now been waiting for over a month. Boxes are packed in every room, and we have nothing left to do but to physically move. It's ---->thisclose, and teasing us like a piece or rotted meat does to a catfish.

This whole process has been long, aggravating, and exhausting. The light is almost at the end of the tunnel. Hopefully I will be posting from my new house in a couple more weeks.

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Plan ahead!

One thing I have never been is a procrastinator. I am a planner, organizer, and I have to things in order. I will plan holidays and important things months in advance because it makes me anxious to think of things not getting done until the last minute, or worse yet, not getting done at all. When I was pregnant, we had everything needed for her when I was 10 weeks along. Like I said- super planner.

So, Christmas is 150 days away. Yes, I said Christmas. I normally start my shopping sometime around August, and will finish up before Halloween. While I am a Christmas nut, I do NOT enjoy being rushed, nor do I enjoy the massive crowds as the day gets closer. I love to get it done, and be able to sit around and enjoy hot chocolate with all Christmas movies on t.v. I am the envy of all my friends come December 1st, yet they look at me like I have 3 heads when I talk about it this early.

I highly recommend planning ahead for this day. Buy 1-2 gifts per paycheck if you are a family that can't afford to buy it all at once. This is what I had done last year, still over a month away from Christmas Day. The pic was taken on November 19th.



I do all this, and have all the decorating done way before December. I actually decorate the outside with lights in late October so I'm not out there in the cold when it gets closer. I just string them up, and I don't plug them in until November 21st.

Once we get moved into our new house in August, the shopping will begin. I started the list today, and I can not wait!





Sunday, July 24, 2011

Technology and my child.



With the ever expanding technology we have at our fingertips, it is no doubt that things will be even better in about 10 years when my daughter will be at the age to beg for all that expensive stuff, and I will at the age of having gray hair worrying about her using said techy gadgets.

We must remember that the internet is not a bad thing, but there are certainly bad things to be found on it. From the millions of pornographic sites, to sites that make fun of people, and right down to the disgusting and deplorable website of Ashley Madison that profits off of people committing adultery.

It is our duty to teach our children about responsible internet usage, and to filter what they see. It's bad enough that they will hear foul language and see questionable things from their friends at school. We can't control that, but we CAN control what is seen in our own home.

Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it- Proverbs 22:6

Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them. Deuteronomy 4:9

My daughter is only 4 right now, but I fully intend on instilling these morals into her. There will be no cell phone or fancy things until she needs them. I don't think it's cute, or even necessary to see a 6-year-old with a cell phone. I didn't even have a cell phone until I was 16. Of course, they hadn't even been around that long at that point in time, but I got along just fine without one. If that makes me a strict mom, then so be it. I want to protect my daughter from making the same mistakes I did as a teenager without God in my life.

The hubby and I haven't went as far to discuss computer usage, but I'm thinking it will only be used in a common area (no computer in the bedroom), and I'm sure he would agree with me on that matter. We are old-fashioned like that.

I can only do my best to teach my daughter the dangers of the internet, and hope and pray that she listens. That's really all any of us can do.



This post is linked here :


Friday, July 22, 2011

One thing I will stress to my daughter..




Earlier today, I was reading all of my Facebook updates, and a friend from high school had posted a bunch of pics from those days. Let me just first start by saying whoa at how far cameras have came in the past 11-13 years. I was laughing at the "top of the line" picture quality back then.

After getting past the shock of how much better pictures look today, I started to get rather emotional. It seems like high school was just yesterday, and it also seems like it was just yesterday that I was wishing away some of the best years of my life. Everyone knows the classic "I can't wait to be on my own so I can do whatever I want" teenager syndrome. If only I had known just how fast those years would go by, and that I have the rest of my life to be an adult. I almost started to cry looking at those pictures.

Don't get me wrong, I have a fantastic life right now. God has blessed me with a great husband, great friends, and a healthy, intelligent, and thriving daughter. I love my adult life, but I wish I would have slowed down as a teenager to truly appreciate how carefree those days were because they were gone as soon as I turned 18.

I knew everything back then, too. I was going to get married as soon as I turned 18 and live happily ever after. Yeah, that fairy-tale didn't happen until 6 years later. I struggled through a lot of heartbreak with ex-boyfriends that I thought were true to me, and they were not. I also struggled with my faith, and I was Agnostic for quite a few years. Little did I know, God had a different plan for me.

I remember a saying that my grandma told me when I was little about how a man treats his mother will more than likely be the way he treats his girlfriend or wife. I didn't understand what one had to do with the other back then, but looking back to my previous relationships, the guys were never very nice to their mothers. One thing I will stress to Shayna when she is older is to wait to get serious with a guy, and if he seems less than stellar to everyone else around her, then he probably is.

When I met David, I quickly discovered that his mother was his world, as was his father, but I never did get to meet him. He would drop everything when she needed him. She was an amazing woman and I miss her dearly.

Most of my friends from that day have went on to get married and have kids just like I did, and as I am now approaching 30, I wish I would have listened to my grandma when she was telling me that I would have the rest of my life to be able to do what I want, but there is also a trade off of paying bills and being responsible.

I'm sure one of these days Shayna will get that same attitude about not being able to wait to get out on her own, and I will be able to tell her not to wish her carefree days away because she will miss them. If she's anything like me, she will not listen, but I promise to show her this blog, and this video:







Thursday, July 21, 2011

A trip to Chuck E. Cheese's

I don't have too much to blog about tonight, so here are some pics of Shayna at Chuck E. Cheese's for her first time ever. Oh, and believe it or not, it was also my first time ever going there. Yes, I'm almost 29-years-old, and had never been to Chuck E. Cheese's, lol. She had a blast, and I can't wait to take her back.































Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Organization and the stay-at-home-mom


Today will be another link-up post, and I am using part of my allotted internet time to blog about this so it will give some blog hoppers something to read. Not that my life is all that interesting, but I like to believe that some people will read it.

For the Wednesday link-up post from Courtney at http://www.womenlivingwell.org/ , we are to blog about virtually anything, so I am choosing to tell a little about my day, and how I stay organized.

First, it's all about binders. I use binders for everything. I have one for coupons (yes, I am one of those coupon moms) and I have one with several folders for receipts, bills, and other documents. I organize all my coupons with baseball card holders so I can see them at a glance, and they are categorized alphabetically with divided tabs.


I have been using binders ever since I can remember. My life feels chaotic if it lacks organization. I love this time at year at Wal-Mart- school supplies! I have been out of school for 12 years, but I still find a use for all those cheap supplies.

Another thing that keeps me organized is a daily schedule of household chores. I have specific tasks assigned to designated days so I'm not cleaning my entire house every single day. I came up with this plan about 4 years ago when I was exhausted from a small infant, and felt like nothing was ever getting done. I designed it to fit around my husband's work schedule so I have fewer things to do on the weekends, and the heavier cleaning is done through the week. However, that schedule has been put on the back burner for the time being due to boxes being packed in every corner, and living in the middle of selling and buying a house. Hopefully it won't be too much longer, and we will be in our new house.


So, there you have it folks. Just a few things that I do to stay organized, and make life easier for myself.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

What a difference..

Today was day one of my commitment to not spending as much time online, and let me tell you what a difference it made with Shayna. The blog I had read that gave me this idea was originally meant to make sure that technology is not interfering with your marriage. I took it a step further and decided to do a little experiment to see how it would affect my daughter if her mommy wasn't constantly attached to the laptop. The results were this:




These were taken right before bedtime, and she was in my lap just laughing like crazy. I decided to start randomly snapping pictures, and I captured the moment very well. We had a great day, and I had her practice writing her name so she could brush up on that skill. She starts her new preschool next month, and I want her teacher to see just how smart she is, and what she is capable of doing.

Since it was so humid and hot outside, I had to improvise and find things for her to do instead of just watching tv. I think once we get moved I will get some fun things for crafts and make a storage area for everything. After all, winter will be here before you know it, and we'll be stuck inside a lot then as well.

After seeing how well she did with me focusing more of my attention on her, I feel so guilty for the amount of time I used to spend on here, but we know that the past can not be changed, so I am trying to do something about it now. I don't want her memories of being a child to include feeling like she was second to my laptop because she definitely is NOT!

All of my blogging and things that take up the most time will now be done when she is bed for the night, and my days will be spent teaching and playing with her. After all, they are only young once.

Monday, July 18, 2011

Media and marriage.

We have all seen it before- marriages falling apart due to social networks and technology, or so that is the excuse we see. Now, while I can see that things like Facebook could be a tool to meet someone for an affair, I do not agree that Facebook (or any other social network) is the cause for any marriage to fail solely in itself. A person has to want to have an affair, and they must be actively seeking that double life.

I believe that we must be responsible and cautious when using the internet so we do not put ourselves in a position that could hurt our spouse. If there is something you are doing online that you would not want your spouse to see, then you are doing something wrong. It's as simple as that.

With that said, this a link-up post that I'm doing from Courtney at http://womenlivingwell.org/ about media affecting our marriage.

I will be the first to admit that I spend too much time online, and after reading her blog, I want to make it a goal to spend far less time in front of the laptop screen. Between Twitter, Facebook, and several groups that I admin or own on Cafemom, I spend several hours a day online. I don't honestly know how many, but I know it's too much.

I am going to make a commitment right now to spend the majority of my time online after Shayna is in bed. She is 4-years-old, and I don't want to wake up a few years from now and realize that I wasted my time online, rather than playing with my child and savoring every moment with her. She is already growing up way too fast.

I will also need to start dedicating more time to my husband vs. the internet. He works third shift right now, so that means not sitting in this chair after he wakes up and worrying about who said what on Cafemom, or constantly checking my Twitter and Facebook accounts.

I think this will be very good for me and for my marriage, not that it's in trouble or anything, but I'm always looking for ways to strengthen my bond with my husband.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Getting old

As I sit here watching "Golden Girls ," (a show that I used to make fun of my grandma for watching), I realize that I am getting way too close to 30. If someone would have told me 10 years ago that I'd be married to the love of my life, raising a daughter, and spending my days as a stay-at-home mom, I would have laughed in their face.





My life is better that I could have imagined it. God has blessed me with a man that provides for his family, and a man with his priorities straight.

He has worked hard to build up his credit, and it has truly paid off. In order to get the house that we really wanted, we had to take out a mortgage loan. It's not something that I wanted to do, but you have to pay for the finer things in life. We have made a commitment to buckle down, and get the loan paid off within the next 9 years instead of extending it out for the full term of 30. In order to do this, we will have to take every tax return for those next 9 years and apply to the loan.

Anyways, on to talk about the new house. It's not in Kentucky where we wanted go originally. It's still in Indiana, but it' s a lot closer to family that where we are now, and it's a way shorter drive to David's work, which I know he is going to love. It literally has everything we ever wanted. It's on 15 acres, giving us more room for cattle, we can get into sheep, and there are hay fields there as well to feed the critters in the winter. There is a nice barn that is already set up for chickens on the inside, and there is some fencing already set up. It has twice the speed of internet that we can get now, and it's cheaper!

The only disadvatages are that we had to take Shayna out of her preschool. We found her a new one that is on the same road as our new house though, and they do a lot of the same things that her old one did. The house also needs some updating, but it's not like we have never done that before, lol.

Here are some pics of the new house. It's also brick, and to be able to get a brick ranch with the amount of land, at the price we did, was an absolute steal.



Monday, July 11, 2011

Oh the things that can happen...

Since the last time I blogged, our house has sold and we found another one. Shayna turned 4, and finished her first year of preschool. Look at how big she is getting:



On to the house business now. We received a good offer on our current home in June- 3 weeks before our contract was due to be up. We were convinced that we were going to stay here. So convinced that we strung a bunch of fence for cattle pasture. That next week, after doing all that work, was when the offer came in.

We searched high and low in Kentucky, but due to the Kentucky Speedway being located in the area we wanted to live, we could no longer find a place in our budget, and I refuse to downgrade and buy a double wide.


We wound up finding a nice brick ranch house on 15 acres with a barn outside of Vevay, IN. That is a lot closer to family, and it's only 15 minutes from David's work. We close on July 29, and I have been busy packing up boxes.

I will talk more about the new house in another post. I wanted to get this posted before I forgot. I'm getting sleepy, and am off to bed to watch some tv and fall asleep.