Happy Wife/Happy Life Survival Kit

This is the best Christmas gift I have given to my husband who wants NO gift at all!

So, I took a recipe box that I'd want sitting around all year long and put cards in it in two catagories: Free and It'll Cost You

Below you see the instructions. Our lives a pretty ordinary (for me) and I find it tiresome to do the SAME thing EVERY Saturday night (watch a movie and eat popcorn). So, I made cards to include some activities to spice up our lives.
Here is a list of the Free ones:
Make hash browns on Saturday or Sunday morning for your wife who thinks you make THE best ones!
Dance with your sweet wife before your movie date: slow, up-beat #9 on The Help CD.
Dance with your sweet wife before your movie date: slow dance #2 Joe Cocker CD.
Plan a picnic and take your wife on one. Be sure to ask for this date ahead of time; she LOVES "the old hwy pond" where she can observe birds.
Dance with your wife before your movie date: up-beat #5 The Help.
Suggest a discussion about a vacation together for next summer.
Slow dance to #5 on the Don Juan de Marco CD.
Suggest a time of deep prayer together before the movie on Saturday.
Dance with your wife before the movie: up-beat #8 The Help.
Ask Catherine to choose 2 hymns or praise songs to sing before you watch your Saturday night movie.
Dance with your wife the Samba #4 Putumayo Presents An Afro~.
Dance with your wife the cha-cha-cha #7 Armik Isla Del Sol

My Dear Husband doesn't dance, but I have suggested we go to the kitchen and pretend he is dancing while I dance around him, especially on the more active ones. He CAN slow dance.
Hey! If you have more ideas, tell me!!!

Here are the ones that will cost him:
Drive to Riggins for sight-seeing, hiking, and dinner or lunch with Ernie and his wife.
Suggest (ahead of time) going to Super 8 to swim and hot tub before your movie date.
Ask your wife on a coffee date at her favorite coffee shop. You could have a hot chocolate!
Ask Catherine out for lunch sometime this week.
Buy your wife her favorite candy bar; you KNOW the one she loves!
Ask your wife out on a BIG date: dinner and a movie (in a theater) in town or LWS.

Again, tell me if you think of more because there are plenty of blank cards in the box!

We have had GREAT success with this. We have NEVER had a discussion about a vacation, and last year we got one day together. We have already planned in August to go to the Oregon Coast. I call that Spicey!!!!

Don't Waste Your Life!

My Dear Husband and I visited in The Dalles for Thanksgiving.

That may seem like old news to some, but Jay had never done that, and I love him for stepping out of his comfort zone to travel. He is a 'stay-at-home' kind of guy.

We've since celebrated Christmas and New Year's Eve, and I confess to y'all that I've been in a struggle all this time. Remember when Jacob wrestled with God in Genesis 32? Well I didn't want my hip to be injured like Jacob's, so today I relented. Every time I questioned God about this He deflected my reasoning. So...

I'm going to the Philippines on a mission trip to an orphanage called Nehemiah House.

I've wanted to make a difference, which I DO!...already, but the Lord has something more for me. I'm reading a book by John Piper called Don't Waste Your Life, and it backs up the call for me to go. I teach and present workshops on Living Like You Mean It, so why I've been so reluctant is curious.

My excuses this morning:

*this morning at the crack of dawn after my prayer time I felt compelled to give all my money away to someone in GREAT need

* there's a wedding in April that my grandson will expect me to attend

*When I asked about the team (hoping they were full), I was told 3 people had just dropped out

God's responses this morning and this afternoon:

**The sermon this morning was about 'embracing the call'!

**The team needs someone to present a Bible study to women, and the one Monique (the leader) has been praying about is one I've been leading for several months! She needs me to present this.

**The team needs someone to lead morning songs for the girls in the orphanage, and I sing!

**I'd been afraid to bring up 'the call' to my husband because he is not a 'go-er', and when I confessed my struggle and perceived 'call' he told me that if I'm called I'd better go AND he'd help with finances!

**Last year if felt a need to renew my passport!

My life is not a waste unless I don't answer the calls on it! I want to live big this year. One of the women I coach told me that in her prayer time she was given that God was going to do something big in the next three months. Since He will do for all what he does for one, I took that and ran with it. My Resolution Chart is made, but it is all about the physical (food, weight, exercise). Now I have even more reason to believe He is calling me for more, for something BIG.

Has He called you for more? Are you reluctant too? Get on the train!

Let's go somewhere BIG for God.

I'll be making aprons madly to raise money for the trip. Also I'll take four with me as gifts to the women who cook for us...lots of white rice, fruits, veggies.

I covet your prayers, your warriors out there.

Answer my call for prayers; answer God's call to live a bigger life for Him this year.

He may not be calling to an overseas mission, but He IS calling you to something!

Don't waste your life!

Recycled Thrift Store Finds!!!!!

I make a B-Line to the 'linens' department at my tiny thrift store usually once a week. Last week a Battenburg Lace tablecloth (a BIG rectangular one) appeared, so I brought it home, cut the square corners off, and mounted one of the corners on a rosie watercolor fabric. I cut the lace away from the top corner so it is shaped like a heart.

And, voila!

The pieces I cut away I mounted on two little girl aprons.


And then...
I picked up a small kitchen curtain, cut the corners off, and mounted them on some green and purple leafy fabric for the next two aprons.

The Battenburg Lace Lady's Apron is already sold, so I'll make three more today and tomorrow.

The pleasure of creating and sewing beautiful aprons that others want gives me such satisfaction!!!