Country Moments in the City

If you know anything about us, you know that we want so badly to live in the country. It has been a burning desire of ours for quite awhile.

Today, the Lord gave us a little bit of the country in the city. While I sat at my desk, Jordan, Ian and I had the opportunity to sit here and watch a little bird (I don't know what kind)hop along the railing of our back porch. The bird had a piece of bark in it's beak. I'm assuming it was off to build, enlarge, or repair it's nest. It paused several times to give us a better look at him.

This evening as we came downstairs after we gave the little two baths, Jordan stopped and stared out our front door. She motioned us over and we all stood there inside the door as a rabbit gave himself a bath in our front yard. We watched it as it continuously licked it's front feet and then rubbed them over various parts of it's head, the backs of it's ears, it's face. It proceeded on to clean it's back feet. It almost looked like it was eating the dirt off of them. It scrubbed it's tummy in the same manner. We stood there for probably ten minutes before Shannen leaned on the door a little too quickly and heavily and it became aware we were watching it. It hopped off not long after.

Maybe these seem like such little things, but for us, who so want to be in the country, they were both real blessings.

5 Easy and Almost Painless Ways to Save

1.) Shop at Shop and Save on a "Coupon Thursday". Spend $50 and save $10. I literally add up all my purchases on my grocery list. I will spend as close to $50 as possible (before taxes). Then with coupons and the $10 that they take off, I get out for much less. Tonight, my bill before any discounts taken at the register was $56 before tax. After the $10 off $50, and my coupons, I paid $30.92.

2.) If something breaks, don't replace it. Okay, this one may or may not sound scary. Really it hasn't been bad at all. Within the past 6 months, our wireless router, our vacuum cleaner, our microwave, and a printer went kaput on us. The only thing we replaced was our printer, and we only spent $21 on that buying a used one from Steve's work. Don't get me wrong, I still clean our carpets, but instead of vacuuming, I use.....heaven forbid, a broom! It takes more elbow grease, but I get the carpets cleaner with than than I did with our old vacuum! We have had a wonderful time without the microwave! We use a wonderful old fashioned tea pot for tea and pop popcorn right on the stove. It's great.

3.) Repurpose items for use in other parts of the home, or find inexpensive alternatives to fancy items. If you've seen anything about my posts on Facebook recently. I've cleaned out my office. I knew I needed a permanent place to put my coupon box, I also needed a place to put file folders upright on top of my desk or file cabinets. I went to the Container Store and instead of a beautiful wooden shelf, I found a wonderful mesh one that I can stack others with later if need be. I also purchased a vertical plate divider to use for my manila folders. The two cost me $13. Those two, a little clutter removal, and elbow grease has given me a new office!

4.)Don't renew subscriptions. Look for free magazines that you would enjoy instead.
I was excited when Money Saving Mom posted that there was a place to get Family Fun Magazine for free for 2 years! I cannot tell you how excited I was. It was a magazine I had been wanting for awhile, but I hadn't wanted to pay for it. What a blessing! On the other side, I have by choicelet one of my subscriptions lapse. I don't miss it a bit.

5.) Get rid of little used services - Do you have a gym membership that you don't use? How about your netflix plan? Is it over adequate? How about your cell phone plan, do you not use many of its features? Scale them back. It'll save you a chunk of change every month

The Triple Dog Dare

Tonight, I have stared myself in the face and said, "I triple-dog-dare-you to live on $180 for the rest of the month". Now, let me put that in context for you. I have $30 cash and $150 in a gift card for a grocery store. Now, are we than hard up for cash? No, honestly we're not (we do have savings), but we made a choice to buy a really wonderful set of CD's from Vision Forum for $62. This item was not budgeted. Now, there's a good buy on some dresses for Jordan for this fall. That's another $66. We have the money in savings, but I don't want to dip in.

So here's the scoop. There are 16 days left in July. I'm taking one week's grocery/living budget and allocating it to the CD's and dresses. This would make us almost even for our spending. I then have to live on $30 cash and $150 in a gift card to a grocery store. I am not at all worried about making it on the grocery side, but what it does mean, is that we have to keep our belt tightened on anything not absolutely necessary for the rest of the month.

Here's to our efforts!

Federal Healthcare Unconstitutional

Take a look at this video clip by Michael Farris.

Interesting Facts

Those who read my blog regularly know that we homeschool. Those who have read for awhile or who know me well know that I believe homeschooling to be tantamount to training our children and bringing them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

Recently, I had the opportunity to attend the CHEF home school conference. Even before I attended the conference, I had heard a message by Voddie Bauchum called "The Centrality of the Home in Evangelism and Discipleship". It stepped on toes despite the fact that we were already homeschooling. As I have heard him say, "Can't say amen, gotta say ouch."

Within the past week, I have relistened to "The Centrality of the Home in Evangelism and Discipleship" bought through Vision Forum as well as "Getting Your House in Order" from the CHEF conference.

Here are some hard facts that he gives. According to a study done by the Southern Baptist Convention, of the children that go through a youth ministry program, 70%-88% leave the faith of their parents by one year after they graduate from high school. 70-88%!!! That is not JUST Southern Baptists. The first time they did the study, they found that 70% of Southern Baptist children leave the faith by one year after they graduate high school. They thought the number was high, so they decided to do another study encompassing people from many protestant denominations. That is where they got the 88% number. What I also found was interesting was that it didn't matter if they went to a public university, a private college, or a Christian college. Still 70-88% of high school students who are involved in youth ministry leave the faith by one year following high school. More troubling than this already troubling scenario is that these children who leave the faith are NOT returning to the faith and church later in life.

By contrast NHERI, National Home Education Research Institute, found that homeschooled children are retained in the faith of their parents through all of college and beyond at a rate of 94%!

We do what is right because it is right, not because numbers are the end all be all of what works. What is right works, not what works is right. In this case, however, I would hope these numbers would convince Christians to homeschool.

Experiment

I had had some bananas which had passed their prime, so I decided to make banana bread. Instead of following the recipe, I decided to make a 'healthy' version. I replaced the shortening with olive oil. I replaced the sugar with sucannat. I replaced the bleached white flour with half whole wheat/half white. I'm waiting for the results, but it sure smells delicious. I'll update later with a picture and the ensuing results.

Update

Okay, I forgot to take the pictures of the bread, but it looked great! Fortunately, it tasted great too. I think I'll continue making it this way. Definitely better for us.

Public Health Care - Petition Information and Must See Videos

Sign the petition to keep health care private. Congress and President Obama are refusing to use the same health care system that they want to impose on us. Canada is already heading back to private health care because of the failure of socialized health care leading to increased deaths.

Here are two videos to watch which show the democrats in their own words with what they are planning. Here's video 1. Here's video 2.