Marriage Retreat

Johnny and I are going on a marriage retreat with our church this weekend. We have done this for 2 years now. We enjoy getting away for a night. We also get great information and good fellowship with other couples.
This is a wonderful thing our church does to help build stronger families in our church.

We are really looking forward to it this year. Thankful that we can go again together. It was about this time last year that Johnny was diagnosed with cancer.

So we are very thankful. It has been are hard, stressful year. It has taken a toll on this family. We are now trying to over come the division that it made in our relationships.
Working on our marriage is a good start. If our relationship is strong then we can be better parents and grandparents.
We are looking to God for the answers and the strength to go forward.

Sickness!!!!!

Here in the great state of Tennessee we are experiencing alot of sickness. Counties all around Knox have been closing school due to sickness for more than a week now. Knox county has now joined them, our schools are closed the rest of the week.

We have had sickness here. Johnny had it last Thurs. and Fri. I got it Sat. night thru Mon. It was horrible. I have not been that sick in years. I felt near death or hoped for it anyway. My teeth even hurt. Thank God we are better and Ross has not taken it.

Our prayers go out to all who are sick. We hope and pray the sickness ends soon.

We have many in our church that are sick too. Everyone needs to remember to wash their hands or use hand sanitizer. If you have a fever or think you are contagious please stay home. That would go along way in stopping the spread of the illnesses.


I guess that is the mom in me sorry.

TIme Management

I have been reading Crystal's Biblical Womanhood Blog this morning. I found her series on time management and it really struck a cord with me.

I can't get anything done because of all that I need to do. Johnny and I have made some changes in our home this week. We are getting on a schedule. You see that WE, not me. Which means that it is more likely to work that when just me tries it.

I know everything that I talk about always goes back to the year we have had. I know you all probably get tired of hearing it but this year is what is changing this family.

I am tired. I do not want to do anything. I just want to sit and do something that does not require me to use my brain or back. Call that lazy, I don't know. My husband is a truck driver and for as long as we have been together I have taken care of everything. He made the moneyand mowed the grass when time allowed. Everything else was up to me. This past year on top of all that, we moved and he was diagnosed with cancer. So I took care of everthing else, him and worked parttime. I did it because God was my strength. Sadly I did not put time for prayer and bible reading in my schedule as I should have. Now I am at a point of emptiness. I need to be filled and my family needs to learn how to do things for themselves. Oh My did I say that?

I admit I am a control freak. There I said it. I am losing that. I don't want to control right now as much as I want to be controlled. Someone needs to tell mewhat to do or it won't get done. After weeks of telling my DH that I am struggling and need help he is finally coming out of his shell. He needs to lead this family as God's word says he should. I am so thankful to reach this point. I have to say we started this this and we have been fought all week. We are all three fighting some sort of illness, Ross had a huge nose bleed, other things have been happening to distract from what we are trying to do. We are going to make it though.

I go through all this to say we are going to have to cut things out of our schedule so that the most important stuff always get done.

I hardly ever tell people no, but I am going to have to start. Ross needs more time and attention with his school work. You see we homeschool and this last yeart has taken a toll on that too.

Our marriage is not as strong as it was. Circumstances and outside forces have really tried to destroy our family. I am slowly starting to make a recovery from this fog I am in.

We are going to make sure Ross gets schooled and this family gets back to the relationship we had with God before all the distractions.
Which means not answering or talking on the phone when I need to be working with him.
I will get up in time to have my quiet time before we start school work.
We will be having family prayer time.
We will be having family exercise time.
We will be telling others that we cannot do things that interfer with any of the above.
I will be posting more later. I need to get my thoughts more together.

Kroger's New Policy

I was shopping this last week and noticed that Kroger had a new sign up that says they will only double the first coupon on a product all others for the same product will not be doubled.

This week I tried out Ingles to see what kind of deals I could get there. I saved more there this week than I did Kroger. Ingles is a little strange on their coupon doubling policy so you have to watch that. Over all I will probably start shopping a little more at Ingles. They do have higher prices on some things.

I have always been loyal to Krogers but now I will be shopping where ever I get the best deals. I know that a while back they visited some blogs that I do. They found out how much everyone was saving in their stores and now a policy change. I think that is wrong. Groceries are going up so much that it is going to be hard on some people to eat. Changing policies so that it makes it harder for people to save on their groceries is just wrong.

I will be checking all my sale papers and when I am out and around that store that is where I will shop. Ingles has also started giving .10 cents off gas so that is appealing to our family.

Just my opinion on things. I am going to be changing some of the things we eat and making more from scratch. That way I can really cut back.