Monday, March 28, 2011

A Simple Woman's Daybook~Entry #1

I have seen this done on several blogs and thought I would give it a try.  ;-)  Don't know if I will like it (or if my readers will like it), but I figured it was a rather simple, quick, and easy way to give everyone a basic update on what I am doing without having to post a long update.. lol!

Outside my window... The sky is blue, the sun is shining... but it is rather windy...

I am thinking...That math went really well today, and how exciting it is to see God's hand in your daily life.

I am thankful for... God being so good to us

From the learning rooms... Math, Human Anatomy (my favorite!), History, English, Language Arts, Spanish, French

From the kitchen... Eating out tonight! Quite the little treat...

I am wearing... my favorite denim skirt that I got at a thrift store, and my favorite purple, long sleeved shirt.

I am creating... a bunch of thoughts in my head.  Writing script, figuring out some major problems for our movie, etc, etc.

I am going... to get to help a mother-friend of mine.  They have 3 kids of their own and just got 4 foster children. It is quite the crazy household at the moment!

I am reading... Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, Do Hard Things by Alex and Brett Harris

I am hoping... to graduate this fall...

I am hearing... some music playing, and other family members talking

Around the house... Mom, Josh, and Caleb are about to go out and look at the show heifers, Becca just finished her school, and I am doing this. ;-)

One of my favorite things... is riding horses

A few plans for the rest of the week: Tomorrow is Drama, Wednesday we have some company, Thursday we have more company, Friday I will be gone helping the woman I mentioned earlier then I will be attending a Girl's Fellowship Night, Saturday some friends are coming over, Sunday.. church hopefully unless something else happens.  

A random picture:
The story behind the picture....  While visiting some good friends, we kids decided to make a spoof on LOTR.  So, from left to right in this picture; Laredo (played Gimli), Aspen (Played Frodo), Me (played Logolas).  Yes, it is rather funny that 'Gimli' just happens to be taller than me.. He got on his knees anytime he was Gimli.  The eldest daughter, Atlanta, had made all the costumes. Aren't they really cool??  You can see the video we made HERE.  Check it out and let me know what you think! I thought it turned out really cute.  The rather funny thing was that I hadn't even seen the movies/read the books yet.  So, I really didn't know who my character was except that he was an elf.. lol!

In Christ's Service,
Sarah

A couple of giveaways!

I am posting to let you know about a couple of lovely giveaways going on!

First, A dear friend, Frannie, over @Authentic Virtue is hosting a lovely giveaway HERE.

And then, over @(life is too short not to) wear red shoes, another giveaway is going on.  Twelve prizes, twelve winners!  Be sure to enter HERE!!


To those who are joining me on the Bible Challenge... are you ready?? ;-)  Let's go!

In Christ's Service,
Sarah

Friday, March 25, 2011

For the "Challengers"

Howdy!

Ok, so May Amelia, one of the young ladies who have joined in the challenge, asked me when we were going to start.....  Well, I'd say let's 'officially' start next week.  That way it will give a bit more time for others to (hopefully) join in.

Here are a few things to keep in mind while doing this (we are NOT limited to this, just a few suggestions that I thought I would share).

~Try to post at least once a week.  If you can do/want to do more, go right on ahead.  However, make sure that you do post once a week.  This way we can keep each other accountable. :-)

~It doesn't always have to be something that God did in your life that week.  Sometimes God will do big things in our lives and sometimes we just have to be content with just being where we are.  However, as you read, if a certain Bible verse should stand out, post it!  I have had several times where I will be reading and a certain verse will stick in my head.  It may not really apply to what I was doing with my life at the time, but when I shared it with a friend, she would tell me that she really needed to hear that.  So, remember that we are here to encourage each other in the Word!!


Also, even after we have started, others are still welcome to join at any time.  If you feel that this won't fit into your schedule to post once a week right now, that is fine.  Just please join us whenever you can!!

One more thing....  To those that have taken the challenge, I am thinking about possibly doing an 'interview' thing.  Just asking a few questions about how you came to know the Lord, what are some things are that have been an encouragement to you as you go on your walk with the Lord, etc.   If you do or don't want to be interviewed, please let me know either way. :-)

May we Glorify God!!

In Christ's Service,
Sarah

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Pushing Sin out of the way

Killing sin should be our ultimate pursuit.  We should not leave any remnant of sin to remain hidden within our mortal bodies.  Because, look at what our sin did to Jesus.  Look at His marred form.  Gaze upon it in deep reflection.  He was bruised, He was crushed, He was disfigured, He was trampled upon, He was pummeled with our sin.  If we truly love Him, we would make it a second by second pursuit to shove the very thought of sin from invading our minds.  Well, Josh, a second by second pursuit is too difficult.  It is near impossible.  Was it impossible for Him, the Son of God, Jesus Christ, to endure complete brutal suffering, the furious wrath of God, in being identified with our sin, becoming sin for us?  No.  He sacrificed everything to endure unfathomable pain and suffering caused by our sin.  Our sin problem was what moved Him from a place of unapproachable glory to become our substitute, and His substitution provoked the very intricacies of destruction that was invoked by our sin problem.  Therefore, demolish sin.  Do not let sin gain a foothold, because Jesus Christ means more to you than temporary pleasure.  Kill it!

Sola Deo Gloria!!!!!
 

After reading the really neat blog post above, written by Joshua @ A Warrior's Heart, I got to thinking………Based on the title of the post ‘destroy sin’, I kind of laughed when the thing that popped into my head later was ‘destroy buzz light year, destroy buzz light year’.  Although that is a cute children’s movie, I began thinking about the character of The Evil Emperor Zerg.  He is obviously the ‘enemy’ and wants to destroy/kill Buzz.  In fact, he wants it so much, that he is obsessed with it.  That is all he can think about.

As I thought about Joshua’s post about destroying sin, he said that we should really aim to shove any sin thoughts out of our minds, and that’s where I started thinking about Zerg….. you know, we really ought to be like him, in a sense.  We should want to destroy Sin so much, that we are constantly thinking about destroying it instead of letting it steep in our minds.  We should constantly be reading our radar to see if any thoughts that are going through our heads is sinful or not.  As my brothers would put it, we need to have our machine guns, bazookas, dynamite, grenades, etc, on the ready so that as soon as any red flag pops up on our radar, we can destroy it ASAP.

Well, how do we get a nifty little radar?  It isn’t as easy as buying one at your local Best Buy or Radio Shack and installing with only a screwdriver…   However, it is pretty simple.   What do you need????..........God’s Word.

If we can hide God’s word in our hearts like He tells us to, we will be able to discern whether this new thought that has popped into our head is from God or not.  Obviously Satan isn’t going to just come out and say, ‘you should hate your brother.’ He comes in a bit more sneakily. He comes from behind and whispers softly. ‘Isn’t that whistling your brother is doing really annoying you?  He can be such a dork sometimes. So inconsiderate. You know, you should pray for HIM to change.. I mean, isn’t that what we are supposed to do, be our brother’s keeper?’.  See, he doesn’t like to just barrage you with the real thing.. not just yet.  Eventually with all his little promptings and whisperings, you will soon find yourself hating your brother!
   
However, when we consistently read God’s Word and spend time with Him, we begin to know God in a deeper way, and when we know God in a deeper way, we will know whether such thoughts come from Him or not.  If we knew God, we would know that that little prompting to ‘pray for thy brother in pompous ceremony’ doesn’t come from Him.  God doesn’t work that way.   Instead, He would be prompting us to focus on our OWN sin areas – such as being selfish instead of loving toward our brother.

I said it wasn’t as easy as installing something with a screwdriver. And it isn’t.  Guess what? Satan REALLY doesn’t want us to study, live out, and love God’s word.  So, he is pretty much going to do whatever it takes to get us to not read it.  How? Oh, don’t worry. He’ll make up plenty of excuses.

Like this one I had the other morning.  As I went to bed the night before, I set my alarm earlier than usual so I could spend extra time with God before my day began.  Well, lo and behold, I had a terrible night. I couldn’t sleep very well, so naturally I was tired when my alarm went off.  Although the weather is warming up, it is still pretty chilly in the house in the morning.  So, Satan started popping excuses into my head.  ‘Do I really need to get up? I mean, I could sleep a little longer and still spend time with God.  Oh, it is so cold in here! My bed is nice and warm..’ as I started dozing off again, my mind suddenly jerked awake.  ‘Hey, wait a minute.  I wanted to get up and spend time with my Lord and look at what is happening!’  I hopped out of bed, quietly padded down the hall, and sat down to read from my precious Book.  As soon as I opened the pages and began to read God’s letter to me, all the doubts and problems I had before started slipping away.  The room, though still rather chilly, didn’t seem so bad any more.  I no longer felt tired from my long night awake.

However, even with incidents like this that can be encouraging, faithfully reading your Bible every day can get tough!  Satan isn’t going to just let me go that easily. Instead, he is going to aim at a different place.  It is up to me to decide if I am going to let his arrows pierce my armor or not.

I am proposing a challenge.  I am challenging my blog readers to join me on a journey.  The purpose of this Journey is to read our Bibles faithfully and encourage each other in the Lord.  Each one who decides to take up this challenge will read his/her Bible daily as best they can (if you know you will have a busy day, try to get up a little earlier so that you won’t miss that wonderful time with God!).  Then, once a week, we can go and post on our blogs what we read that encouraged us, what God did in our lives, etc. We will be able to encourage each other to keep reading, and better yet, we will be encouraged by what other’s are learning and reading.

So, who is up for the challenge?

In Christ’s Service,
Sarah

**Edit note:
If you are a reader of this blog but do not have a blog of you own, you are still more than welcome to join up in the challenge.  You can post your thoughts in a comment.  :-) I want this open to whoever would like.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Big Praise on Mr. J

Hello friends!

I just thought I would let everyone know that Mr. J went home yesterday from the hospital!  He was in only 6 days when they thought that, at the very best, he would be in for 2 weeks.

This is definitely a major praise!!!!

In Christ's Service,
Sarah

Monday, March 21, 2011

You know it is windy when....

...you step outside and begin running, but not because you want to...
...you open your mouth, you instantly feel grit all over your teeth and you feel as if your mouth has been filled with mud...
...you pull off your sun glasses and you look like a raccoon...
...you go to wipe your face with a washcloth that was originally white, but has now become a muddy brown..
...the water going down the drain has clumps of mud that is falling out of your hair...

Yup, it is officially spring here in NM... No doubt about it. ;-)

I hope that today finds you in calmer weather. =D

In Christ's Service,
Sarah

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Praise the Lord, Praise the LORD, PRAISE THE LORD!!!

Did I mention that we should PRAISE the LORD???? ;-)

I have some WONDERFUL news concerning Mr. J.  He is beginning to recover already at a rapid pace, even though the doctors thought it would take several weeks.  It looks like he will have no long term effects from this!!!  Praise GOD!!!

It was such a relief to hear this.  Thank you all SO much for your prayers! They appreciate it SO much.

Another praise is that bull sale season is over for another year.  We always enjoy them when the time rolls around, but are always relieved when they are over.  I will try to post some pictures or picture video soon.

I hope you all are having a blessed Sunday!

In Christ's Service,
Sarah

Friday, March 18, 2011

Another update on Mr. J and the bull sale

Well, it has been a long, but good, day.  :-) 

We got a text from Mrs. J saying that Mr. J had been able to walk across the hall and sit in a chair.  This is some great improvement!!! Thank you SO much for your prayers.  I know that the family really appreciates it.

The bull sale went pretty well.  God really blessed us and we were luckier than others.  We sold all bulls but three (but the Lord is good and already has a few guys lined up who want to buy them).  I don't think we were extremely pleased with the silent auction, but it was worth a try!  Certainly got more visiting in because there wasn't an auctioneer shouting out numbers. ;-)

Thank you, again, for all your prayers this bull sale season.  We really, really appreciate it.  I will hopefully be posting pictures later. :-)

Have a blessed evening!

In Christ's Service,
Sarah

Update on Mr.J and another prayer request

Ok, here is the latest update on Mr. J.

He has been moved to the ICU (I don't know why he wasn't there before). He has encephalitis (I finally got the big word for it).  Fortunately it is viral instead of bacterial.  Apparently viral is better (Ok, obviously not 'better' but I guess bacterial is worse than viral.)

Mom was saying that at best he will have about 2 weeks in the hospital.  But, still don't know if he will come away fully recovered or not.

Mrs. J has been able to get some rest and is doing better knowing he is under constant watch.

Thank you for your prayers!

We are heading out to our LAST bull sale!!  Please pray that it goes well! Thank you so much!

In Christ's Service,
Sarah

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Update on Mr.J

Thank you, prayer warriors, for lifting up the J family in your prayers today.

Dad just called and said he had stopped by the hospital and saw Mrs. J, Levi (the oldest son), and the baby.  They were all very tired.  Mrs. J was going to head home and check on things back there as well as try to get some sleep.

Mr. J isn't doing very well.  Dad said it is hard to tell whether he will recover fully or have some effects left over. I don't know if he is on his way to recovery, or if the doctors still aren't sure.

Thanks again!

In Christ's Service,
Sarah

Urgent Prayer request

Dear Prayer Warriors,

I am posting on behalf of some friends of ours who are going through a lot right now.  Yesterday afternoon, Mrs. J received a call from Mr. J informing her that he was coming home early because he wasn't feeling well.  When the J family got home, he was already there taking an nap.
   Later that night, Mr. J was having problems making himself understood (he was only able to mumble), and couldn't walk without assistance.  Mrs. J and the oldest son (along with the little baby) took him to the emergency room.  By the time he was actually taken in and his problem was diagnosed, it was 4 in the morning. 

He has swelling in the brain.  I don't remember the fancy word used for it, but just those simple words can say a lot.  This is really major and can sometimes be fatal.  He is the father of 7 children, their ages ranging from 16 to a couple of months (they just had another baby).  Please keep them in your prayers.  Please pray that the Doctors will know what to do, that God will give Mrs. J peace, that the whole family will be leaning in God through this whole ordeal. 

Mrs. J and the oldest son have not had sleep for 40 hours, so please keep them in your prayers that God will give them strength.

I will try to keep you updated as soon as I know more.....


Also, although this is not as urgent, our last bull sale is coming up this Friday at 1pm (MT).  Please pray that all will go well.

Thank you so very much,
In Christ's Service,
Sarah

Monday, March 14, 2011

Thank you!

Thank you, everyone, for praying for the bull sale today.  Your prayers were very much appreciated.  God was SO good to us and all of the bulls were sold. For a good price, too!! :-)

It was an extremely long day.  Let's just say that God was good to give me the strength to function on less than 6 hours of sleep.  ;-)

We still have one more bull sale to go.  This last one (on this Friday) will kind of be the biggest one.  This is our bull Test.  We have had the bulls up there for a long time.  They feed everyone the same thing and then keep track of their daily gain, average gain, and all that other stuff.  So, it is always exciting to see how every one's bulls turns out.  This year will be slightly different because we will be doing a silent auction.  Don't know how that will go, but we will see!! 

Any how, I am thinking of doing one long post afterwards with pictures from all the bull sales.

Well, off to kick back and let my little brother finish up something on here. ;-)

Praising God,
Sarah

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Prayers for Tomorrow/Today

Ok, I am writing this at 30 minutes until midnight, so y'all will read this 'tomorrow', or 'today'...

Any way, our second/middle bull sale is tomorrow.  I am asking for prayers again that it will go well.  Thank you so much for your prayers on the last bull sale. They were very much appreciated.

Now, off to put sheets on my bed so I can crash and put in a few hours before getting up early! ;-) (Thank goodness I don't have to drive.. lol!)

In Christ's Service,
Sarah

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Changes... again

Ok, ok, I know.  Whoever came up with making cute blog backgrounds made a big mistake... lol!  I love blog backgrounds.  I also love variety, so you can't expect a background to stay around here for long..

I decided that the previous purple background was a bit too..... purple?  I don't know.   Yes, pink daisies have nothing to do with lilac bushes (though, there are pink lilacs...), still....

Any way, I felt kind of 'shrunk' whenever I was looking at my blog.  So, I decided to go with something a little more 'clean and open', but non-the-less cute. ;-)  What do ya think?  This one also came from Simply Blog it Backgrounds.


In Christ's Service,
Sarah

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Brain dead

Yes. I. Am. Brain. Dead. I. Can. Not. Think.  I. Am. Totally. Blank.  

Ok, maybe not that much.  There is only one thing that makes me feel like my brain has been fried.  MATH.  Oh, that word makes me shudder!  I am horrible at math.  It takes forever to explain things to me (thank you, Momma, for having patience!).  Then, by the time she is finished explaining one thing, I have forgotten the other, so we have to go over it again. I don't know what it is, but try as I might, I just can't seem to retain it all..

Any way, off of math, please...  That is, or so I thought, the only thing that makes me feel 'brain fried'.  However, I discovered something new.

Researching.   As some of you know (because you were readers of Country Musings before I moved over here) we are making a Regency Movie with some friends of ours.   After deciding that we didn't have time to do it right now, we figured we could do it over summer break.  This would give us plenty of time to get script memorized, and possibly make more costumes (we had only one dress per girl..). 



Well, I decided to do some researching.  A while back I had found a site that a woman had made specifically for looking at the different 'period correct' costumes of different eras.   She had a regency section (in fact, most of her stuff is Regency, so that is cool), so I ended up look over many, MANY things. Yikes.  Mostly it was trying to find details.  Little things you could do to change a dress, using very minimal accessories, or fabric. Such as the 'faux' sleeves.   These were long, gauze sleeves that would attach to your dress's original short sleeves.  Put these on during the day, take them off in the evening.  Voila.  'Two' dresses using a simple sleeve change! 

I was trying to find a lot of these little details so that it would be as inexpensive as possible.  We don't have tons of money to spend on this (nor do we WANT to spend tons of money on this), so trying to be resourceful is essential.  As in the picture below.  You could make that tunic thing and wear it over a dress. Once again gives you two new dresses without using as much fabric.



Still, I hope I got all, or most, of the researching done this morning so I don't have to do that again.. *sigh*.  I do love the little fichu that Elinor wears in the neckline of the dress. It is feminine and modest, but gives the dress an intersting look.



On the brighter note, I figured out a beautiful song!  I was sending some e-cards to some friends, and one of them had the prettiest music to it.  So, after listening to it for a while, I sat down and figured it out. That was loads of fun. :-)  I love getting to learn new, fun, beautiful songs any time I can. That way, playing music doesn't get boring.. lol!!   Well, perhaps for you really good pianists out there, it is easy to keep learning new songs.  I only had a couple years in piano, just to learn the basics, before I stopped and moved on to fiddle.  So, .I can't just sit down and play some big song. It takes me a long time to learn it, first off, and then after I learn it and play it over and over... I get bored and start the whole process over again.  You may think, 'duh, that is what you are supposed to do!' but I guess I am weird. ;-)

So, how was your day?  What did you do today?

In Christ's Service,
Sarah

P.S.  I added an 'about us' page (under code name of Country Characters.. ;-). Please visit it and tell me what you think!!

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Surprise, surprise!

Last night was rather windy.. ok, not 'rather' but extremely windy.  This is typical spring weather around here, though, so we were used to it.  However, one thing did surprise us during this wind storm.

It had blown all night long.  When I occasionally woke up (I was actually feeling very sick last night, but I am feeling much better this morning.. Whew!), the wind was howling around the house something awful.
When I woke up this morning, lo and behold we had SNOW on the ground!!!!  It was crazy.  I guess all those dark clouds, which had been sprinkling rain that afternoon, decided to get cold and dump snow instead.  It was kind of funny. ;-)

Any how, just wanted to say howdy to all of you.. lol!

I will be doing a post about our bull sale, just so you know and don't despair (yes, I am flattering myself thinking you would despair if I didn't post it.. ha!).  We have just been having some Internet problems, again, so I can't load pictures.  I will be lucky if I can get this published! ;-)

Off to drama and hope all of you are having a wonderful day!!  Please just pray we don't blow away..  or we may be visiting some of you who are East of us.. lol!

In Christ's Service,
Sarah

Friday, March 4, 2011

Prayers for tomorrow please!!

Hello!!

I am saying that from a hotel room.  Yes, hotel room.  ;-)  Right now we are in the lovely city of Roswell..... wait a second, did I say 'lovely'???  Yikes!  Maybe not so lovely, if you know anything about Roswell.  Not that it is a bad town, but what the whole town is kind of 'based' on, or 'built up' on, isn't so good... know what I mean?

Any how, I would really appreciate prayers.  The only reason we are here in Roswell is for a bull sale.  As you may have read on my Sister's blog, we are selling 3 bulls at the Roswell Livestock Auction.  We usually do fairly well here, but we always appreciate prayers that our bulls will do especially well.  Right now they are most of our livelihood.  Until Dad get going strong in his new job, we really rely on the bulls to sell well to help make payments (I am sure most of you know what that is like...). 

So, please pray that the sale will go well-not just for us, but for everyone.  Lots of people here ranch for a living, so they really need their bulls to sell well.

I have to admit, I have a big interest in this sale, more than most years... why?  My 'big boy' is going to be sold!  That is right.  My cow (we get to keep our show heifers) had a bull last year.  So, I am selling him here. I hope he does well!! :-) ;-) lol!

Any how, thanks so much for the prayers. They are really appreciated.  When we get home, I plan on posting all about the trip, so keep an eye open! Especially you out there who love antique shopping, cuz' guess what we did today?? lol!

In Christ's Service,
Sarah