Arkansas friends...or those with friends in AR, please share.

The son of one of my dear homeschooling friends will have a show on your local PBS station; it's called Paint with Kevin. It will be airing in the morning at 10 a.m. If you don't live in AR, you can see shorter videos of him on YouTube under the same title...or on his website.

Thanks so much!!! Have a great weekend!!!

My absence

On March 22nd, my mom suffered a mild stroke, and she was hospitalized until Monday, the 24th. However, my sister and I have been trying to come up with a plan for her future care since she also has other major medical issues (diabetes, Parkinson's, and major heart disease-including two open heart surgeries already). Trying to research care facilities and other things have taken up the majority of time over the past week and a half. If there are any other sudden absences, they will probably be due to helping out Mom.

Even though I know you didn't have a choice but to wait for me to post again, I do appreciate your patience and reading my posts.

Sleepless on a Wednesday night...sigh

Finally, I'm catching up on sleep I lost on Wednesday night. For some reason, I only slept 4 hours, and I was up at 3:30 in the blessed morning...which is definitely NOT my normal hour of arising. I just couldn't get back to sleep, and I was pretty brain-dead for all of Thursday. It's a wonder how I stayed upright during the dance class that morning. I hadn't felt that sleep-deprived since my kids were little.

Goji Berry Allergies

About a year ago, I tried a foundation that had Goji berries in it and had a terrible reaction to it. My face was swollen, red, itchy, and so attractive...NOT! It was like that for about three days, so I have been careful to read labels looking for Goji berries. Doing that actually stopped me from buying a haircare product I was super excited about trying. I have gray hair, and I wanted to try this product from Jhirmack. I'm really glad I went online and read the ingredients. Lo and behold, there was Goji berry listed on the label. Phew! Saved me from that again.

However, it didn't save me from it on Monday. I had bought another foundation in the same Maybelline Instant Age Rewind line because I didn't see anywhere on the ingredients "Goji berry". I put it on Monday and wore it all day. By the time I washed it off, my face was a big ugly mess and got worse. After taking two Benadryl and some Alavert, I was finally able to go to sleep. I was miserable.

Before I fell asleep though, I did a quick comparison of the ingredients in the two foundations to see what was going on. What was the culprit? Sure enough it was Goji berry, BUT it was listed under the scientific name...lycium barbarum. After a quick Google search, it popped up. UGH! Why couldn't they just put on the front of the label that it had Goji Berry in it like on the other foundation??? It would've saved me a very comfortable few days this week. (I really did like the coverage, but I'm NOT going through that every time I wear it.)

I hope this will save someone else from experiencing what I did...even if you THINK you might be sensitive to them.

Just got internet back up and running yesterday.

I'm desperately trying to play catch up, and I hope to be more regular with blog posts again in the next day or two. Thanks for still looking!

"Whatever you have to do, we need to be connected to the internet."

I heard someone say that last week, and it's stuck with me all week. Why? I guess I immediately wondered if we ever feel the same way about our connection to God. We all know He's always there, and, in our most trying times, we tend to call on Him 24/7. If we checked our connection to Him on a regular basis like we check our email or Facebook, I think we'd all feel a lot more purposeful in our lives. (Note: I've needed to remind myself of this all week as well.)

It's interesting to notice that sometimes I cut back on my quiet time with the Lord when I seem to be stuck in the same situation for a long time without feeling like I'm moving forward at all. Since God never moves, where I am in relation to Him is all my doing. I've been stuck in a not-so-perfect living arrangement for almost four years now with seemingly no change in the near future. Not that life was perfect before now, but I at least had my own place to live in with the kids and not feel like I've been a horrible imposition to someone else. It's slowly feeling like a little bit of progress is being made in the right direction. Praise the Lord for the small things...like teaching a one-hour class each week!!! Even though I haven't started yet, it's more than I've had in quite awhile. I'm hoping and praying it will lead to even bigger and better things.

I just want to renew myself to being more connected to Him...whatever I have to do. Luckily, no tech support is needed for this one.

Do you need to be better connected, too?
 

2014: The Year to be Proactive and Productive!

One of the online forums for homeschooling I belong to always invites people to participate in choosing a word or words to focus on for the upcoming year. My words for this year are PROACTIVE (not to be confused with the acne treatment either) and PRODUCTIVE. I spent too much time reacting to situations last year which kept me from being terribly focused on other things. I want that to change this year. Actually, I NEED that to change this year.

You don't have to be a homeschooler to join in either!

Tuesday Morning Chuckle

A little backstory: For the Christmas season, I rejoined a choir I had been in a few years ago. We had five performances in December...four of which were in the same week. We had had a Friday night performance over an hour from where I live. (Luckily, there's three of us in the choir who live in the same area I do, so we can carpool.) The Saturday performance was over two hours away. Basically, I left the house at 10:45 AM to meet at the house of the person who was driving. We didn't return until around 6:00 PM. It was a LONG day, and I was really looking forward to seeing my kids who had been on vacation with their dad since that Tuesday. I go to open the door on my car, and the handle just SNAPPED off in my hand. (I know I've been working out and all, but I am NOT that strong for that to happen...especially when I was wearing pretty thick gloves.) Anyway, ever since then, I've had to go through the passenger door and climb over the middle console into the driver seat when I go anywhere alone.

Fast forward to this morning: I have a one-hour intermediate/advanced step class on Tuesday mornings. A lot of the time I'm heading to the Y alone. I've got my water bottle and towel in hand walking to my car. Forgetting that I'm wearing black nylon workout pants, I get in the passenger side brace myself against the back of the seat and try to proceed doing my regular maneuver. Within the first few seconds of trying to brace myself, I started to slide down the seat. It caught me so off-guard that I jerked, then I started laughing at the fact I didn't anticipate that happening. If anyone was watching me, they probably got quite a kick out of it, too. FYI...the step class was pretty fun! (I'm recovering from being out two weeks, so I had to stop a few times-not as many as I had thought. That's a good thing.) I hope you have a spectacular day and God gives you at least one reason to laugh!