Exercise

We bought a new exercise machine for the abs. I'm not sure if it is gimic or not, but my hubby got a great deal on it. It is called the Ab Circle Pro. It is one of those machines that claims to get rid of those love handles that no one loves :). It is actually quite fun to use, but I'm not sure I will look like I have washboard abs after using it. I guess only time will tell.

It is supposed to be a nice weekend here, and not so hot. Hopefully we will get to go in the kayaks some. Jeff's parents have borrowed them recently, and they have been through a bit of a war. Jeff's dad took someone who had never been in a kayak before on a really fast river. He borrowed our yellow kayak, and spent the majority of the time upside down in the river! Then they borrowed the red kayak to go kayaking on the river with some friends, and again tipped over a bunch of times. They had to drag the kayak to shore, and it was filled to overflowing with mud and river water. I haven't tipped in our kayak, and I have no desire to tip! For some reason, the whole idea of it just freaks me out. Not that I don't wear a life jacket, but it is just the idea of it. Jeff thinks I should just purposefully tip so I will get over my fear of tipping over. I'm not really thrilled about that idea.

Top Ten

One of my favorite blogs that I read is having quite an interesting discussion about a controversial book that a lot of Christian's are reading. In these discussions, the subject of grief came up. I commented to Elizabeth, the blog owner, that after I had my miscarriages, I wanted to write a book called "101 Things Not To Say To A Grieving Person". She told me I should at least do a blog post on the subject. So here you go Elizabeth :). I obviously won't write 101 things, as this would be the longest blog post in history, but I will name the top ten. I have talked with many people who have gone through times of grief, and amazingly we seemed to always talk about comments that people have made that were supposed to be words of comfort, but instead came across as downright awful. These top ten were ones that were always mentioned as being the comments that were the most painful. So here they are...

1. "It was God's will"
This is probably the number one thing we heard from people when we were going through our losses. It was one of the most painful too because it automatically makes a person start questioning God. Even if you believe this way, don't say that to someone who is grieving!

2. "God had a reason for this"
Again, even if that is how you believe, it is no comfort to the person. All it does is make the person more likely to blame God.

3. "All things work together for good..."
This is from Romans 8:28. The Bible can be a wonderful tool of comfort. Just not verses like this. The person is not seeing any good at that time, they just see their pain.

4. "To everything there is a season. A time to weep, a time to mourn, a time to die..."
Taken from Ecclesiastes 3. Again, another Bible passage that just isn't a comfort to someone who just lost a loved one. If you want to use scripture to bring comfort, use comforting scriptures! Scriptures like Psalm 147:3 "He will heal the brokenhearted and bind up their wounds". Or Psalm 34:18 "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit".

5. "God just needed your loved one in heaven".
I heard this one for the first time at a funeral for a baby who died of SIDS. I wasn't even married yet, and I was horrified by this. It didn't seem comforting at all.

6. "It was better this way"
I have heard this one a number of times. I remember overhearing it after finding out a woman I knew had given birth to twins when she was only 5 along. They were born too early, and died shortly after birth. Someone at church said that it was better that they died, because had they lived, they could have had multiple health problems. I also heard this after one of my friends lost one of her twins in the womb. Several commented that her financial state wasn't very good, so it was better this way. I had a lot of people tell me this with the miscarriages. They said that God was saving me from heartbreak because the babies could have been born with health problems. Even if that were true, which probably was not the case, that was not comforting at all.

7. "God had a plan in your loved one dying"
Again, even if you believe that way, don't say it!

8. This is a common thing said to those who have miscarried..."At least it happened early on, and not when you were farther along." To that person who lost that child, that child was still a huge part of them, no matter what the age.

9. I never heard this one because I didn't have any other born children at the time, but I have heard a lot of other mothers complain about this statement made to them after they lost a child.."You can be thankful for the children that you do have." Again, a true statement, but no comfort whatsoever in that person's time of pain.

10. "God will never give you more than you can handle"
This is also from scripture, and probably one of the most frequently used "words of comfort". It is also one of the worst! At that time, a person going through grief really feels like it IS more than they can handle!

Grief is unfortunately a part of life. If you know someone who has lost a loved one, your best way to comfort them is to say as little as possible. Saying something like, "I am so sorry for your loss" or "I will be praying for you and your family" or "If you need anything at all, please don't hesistate to call" is way more of a comfort. You can't take away that person's pain, but you can help by not adding to it.

Bunnies

I think bunnies are so adorable, and cute. I love to see them hopping around, and when they are babies, they are heartbreakingly precious. I just don't love bunnies when they do this to my broccoli plants...













One of them somehow got into our back yard, even though it is fenced. This is the first time this has happened since we lived here. My broccoli plants were looking so beautiful, then one day I came out and they were chewed all up. Most of the plants are barely even there now. GRRRRRR! So far they haven't touched anything else, which is good. My lilies are looking beautiful in my garden. They are loaded with blooms.











It was a busy day yesterday. We went to two different weddings. My cousin got married, so we went to that wedding first. It was a gorgeous day, and the wedding was beautiful. Afterwards we went out to dinner with my parents, then headed to the next wedding! One of Jeff's co-workers got married, so that is the other wedding we went to. Both weddings were at a Lutheran church, and Jeff and I were laughing at how they were both almost exactly the same. Evie had never been to a wedding before, and she was super excited about the first one. I think she was bored to tears at the second one :). She did great though. Today, we went to church and had a wonderful Father's Day message. We ate lunch at Jeff's parents. It has been a great weekend!

The Duggar Family

I am completely fascinated with the Duggar family. Are you all familiar with them? They have a program on The Learning Channel (TLC) called "18 Kids and Counting". I'm telling you, this family just seems amazing to me. Jim Bob and Michelle have 18 children, and they homeschool them all. They are completely debt free, and they run their house in a Godly, loving way. I recently bought their new book, because I wanted to get some encouragement about Godly parenting, and I figure they were the perfect parents to learn from! I always wanted to have a big family, but circumstances haven't worked out that way yet. Techically, I do have a big family. It's just that 6 of my kids are not with me on this earth. I would like to have some more earthly kids :). Jeff keeps joking that we had better hurry up if we want to catch up with the Duggar's :). He figures I would have to have 6 sets of triplets to catch up. Lol! I know that a lot of people think the Duggar's are completely nuts for having so many kids, but to me, it is awesome. According to the Bible, children are a blessing from the Lord. Also children teach us HUGE things about ourselves and areas we need to work on. I never realized how selfish I was until Evie was born. It was a big wake up call for me, and I have had to do a lot of changing. I have had to rely on the Lord so much more to help me be a better wife and mom. The thing I love about the Duggar's is that they incorporate God into everything they do. They truly are "training their kids up in the way they should go". I want so much to do that with Evie, and I know Jeff does too.

Free babysitting

A church near where we live is having Vacation Bible School from 6:30-9:00 every night this week, and Evie has been going with one of her friends from our church. One awesome thing is that it has been free babysitting for Jeff and I :). On Monday, we came back home and went for a nice long walk, then sat on the front porch and talked. Yesterday we just hung out together, and tonight we are going to either go kayaking or go out to eat. It has been really fun! It is a rare thing for us to have this many days in a row of date nights, so we are taking advantage of it. Plus Evie is having a blast and learning more about God! You can't beat that!

My garden is growing so well because we have had lots and lots of rain. Everything is coming up, and my tomato plants are getting huge. I'm eating some lettuce already, and it has been really good. I should plant some more because I didn't really plant enough to have us eating it every day. My clematis is climbing crazily over my arbor. It is just now starting to flower, and it is looking pretty. It is still so cool here! I'm not used to low 70's in June. Normally by now it is hot and muggy. It is kinda nice having it this cool!

The goodness of God

I was reminded today of the beautiful verses in the Bible in Lamentations 3:22-23 that talks about God's mercies being new every morning. In the New Living Translation it says, "The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning." There are so many days where I feel like I royally screw up, and it is always such a blessing to know that each day is a new day. We can wake up and start new, and know that God doesn't remind us of our screwups, but gives us mercy to start over again. Some days I end the day and think about how I really did not do things that were pleasing to Him. I can either beat myself up, or I can ask forgiveness, go to sleep and know that I can start over again in the morning. What a comfort to know that according to Isaiah 43:25 that He says, "I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more." Our sins are forgotten and blotted out when we accept Him as our Savior. When we believe He died for us, and ask Him to be our Savior and Lord. He died on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins, and offers us salvation as a free gift. What a gift! Knowing without a shadow of a doubt that when we leave this earth that we will get to spend eternity in heaven with Him! In this crazy day and age when things seem so unsettling at times, I can't imagine how scary it would be to not have the peace that only comes through Christ.

Snowing, kayaking and barking

It really isn't snowing here, but it looks like it! We have cottonwood trees that are leaving these floaty white thingys all over the place. And everyone around here is sneezing, coughing, wheezing, etc. It has been really cool here for summer. Last week it barely got into the 70's. Yep, it's all that global warming we are having. Jeff got a kayak for his birthday, so now we have 2 of them. We have been kayaking on the channel that is across the street from our house. It leads to the river, and we have gone on the river a few times. I'm still trying to get used to being in a kayak. Jeff always has Evie in the kayak with him, and she loves it. I'm still pretty wobbly. The other day, I completely lost control and ran right into Jeff. So you can say I am kayaking challenged. I'm slowly learning though. It is a lot of fun! I would take a camera with me, but I'm not so sure that is a good idea with my wobbling around and all. There is a dock that is mostly in the water in one end of the channel. There is always about 15 turtles on there, and one is about the size of a dinner plate. Huge! When we go bike riding and Evie sees them, she yells "turtle soup!" and they all jump into the water :). We have been trying to walk a couple of times a day, or bike. We take the dog with us, in hopes that it will help calm her. She spends every waking moment of her day barking. She seems a leaf, she barks. She sees a squirrel, she acts like we have an axe murderer running through the yard. I always joke that if an axe murderer really came to the door, she would probably just wag her tail. She sees kids on bikes, she barks like they are riding off with all of our belongings. She just sits at the windows (which are everywhere in our house) and waits for something to bark at, which normally takes all of about 30 seconds because we live in a busy, active subdivision. We have been watching episodes of The Dog Whisperer, hoping that we may find some snippet of information to help us. He says walking a dog for 40 minutes a day really helps behavior problems. It certainly is good exercise for us!

I'm baaaaack :)

I had a nice hiatus from the computer. It was good to take a break and get my priorities in order. I want to be a good steward of the time God gives me. I have missed blogging though. It is therapeutic...and fun!

Let's see. Since last time I blogged, we took Evie into the eye doctor to have her eyes checked. I had started to notice in the past few months that she was putting her face really close to her book when she was reading. The doctor said she was farsighted, but that it should correct itself in a few years. She now has reading glasses that she wears when reading, being read to, or if she is on the computer. I have to say, she looks sooooooooo adorable. See?












We had ordered some butterfly larvae in the mail over a month ago, and the caterpillars arrived a few weeks ago. It was amazing to see them change from a caterpillar to a chrysalis. Completely cool to watch. God is such an awesome God! To see His creation like this was just awesome. Literally the caterpillar to chrysalis stage happened within about an hour. The caterpillar went from hanging upside down in the container to looking like a leaf. Here are the 5 chrysalids. Four of them are hanging on the white disc, but one fell down at the bottom of the tent.



















We watched almost all of them come out of the chrysalids, and it was such an amazing sight to see! Their wings would be all curled up, and they would uncurl within a few minutes. I can't believe I didn't get a single picture of them! What was I thinking! I was so glued to watching it with Evie that I didn't even think to take a picture! The very last one that came out had a lot of trouble. It was the one that had fallen to the bottom of the tent. It came out and couldn't get the chrysalis away from it's body. By the time it made it out, it's wings had dried all curled up. I looked online to see what to do, and even tried misting it with water. It's wings never uncurled. Evie was really sad, but in a way it was it's own homeschool lesson in what happens sometimes in nature. We were able to let them all go free yesterday. We took them out and put them on our flowers, and 4 of the 5 flew away. It was pretty cool. The other one we just put out on the flower. We knew it probably wouldn't live long, but at least it was free. We are going to send away for more caterpillars. It was such a fun thing!


Hope you all are doing well. It is good to be back in blog-land :).