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7 Days

7 Days!!!!

I can't believe it only 7 more days.

In 7 Days we'll be homeowners again.

In 7 Days my baby can get her own room and out of ours.

In 7 Days my baby can finally start sleeping in her crib.

In 7 Days I will hopefully not step on toys going to the kitchen, bathroom, bedroom.

In 7 Days I get to park my van inside.

In 7 Days we will be committing to debt for 30 YEARS....aaahhhh.

In 7 Days the dog will no longer have a window to look out and see all the passing cars. (Please Lord, I pray there will be less barking in our household.)

In 7 Days we will have separate rooms rather than one big room the serves as the kitchen, dinning room, living room, toy room, and office.

In 7 Days I won't have to tiptoe around like a little mouse hoping not to wake up the girls.

In 7 Days my husband can come home for lunch.

Our family is so excited, our list is endless. On Monday we sign, Tuesday we clean and Friday we move. Please join in and say WhoopWhoop.

Where Have I Been?

Where have I been? That is a question I wish I had a different answer too. I've been swimming in a sea of be overwhelmed. The times I get overwhelmed it can be disastrous because rather than doing something about it....I do nothing. I avoid everything like the plague. Seriously I didn't even check my inbox for atleast 5 days. Was that a mess. So what has been overwhleming? Let me take you on a photo graphical tour.

This is our storage room. When we moved in there was stuff left in it from the previous tenant and a lot of stuff from one of my dad's businesses that is currently on the back burner. It is a sea of stuff tossed in and pushed aside. Never have I been happy with the state it is in, and never has it provided much of a benefit other than a catch all.


Yeah wasn't that pretty yucky. This room has everything in it. It has clothes that won't fit in our closet. Bins of clothes and baby stuff Dancing Girl has grown out of. Food and kitchen stuff that I can't fit in my cabinets. Craft, Scrapbooking and sewing. Unused pictures frames I still need to put photos of our wedding in. Coats, towels, medicines, cleaners. Big toys we take out on special occasions, books, momentos, decorating stuff from our house, and more. This is the project that plagues me everyday, while cleaning it out stuff has rolled out into the hallway and has taken semi-permanent residence. What is most difficult about that whole thing is that it is not all our stuff!!! So in through this process I have to find stuffs' owners and say "This needs to be moved, where too, and can I do it now?" Finding other places for some stuff to reside has been the most difficult, because guess what; when you relocate stuff you then have to: move, shuffle and organize the relocated residence of the stuff. Anyways the goal is to downsize, consolidate, organize and group with a budget of zero. The biggest challenge is deciding what things are most often used so that way it can come to the front of the room and the other things towards the back.

This is also what has taken up time.

KMart what has this to do with anything. Well here we go I'm now an official part-time employee of Kmart. Yes I will be working a few evening/nights and weekends. Last week was difficult, I had to find time to watch my training videos during the hours HR was working. Sounds simple, but not so simple. Finding a babysitter was hard because guess what everyone was sick or we were sick ourselves. So difficult I would have someone lined up to babysit and then the dreadful call of "We're sick better find someone else" would come. We got through it though, I got the videos watched and we all; myself, Mr. S and Dancing Queen, managed to catch the bug.

Yes so we've been sick. I dread being sick. I just feel all mopey and it takes SO much effort to get anything done.

So with everything any inspiration has left me and is long gone. I hope to find it again, and soon. I'll be back regularly, soon. This job thing is hard to get used to but we're adjusting, and before long we'll be adjusted. Have a great day. It's rainy here so it's kind of gloomy.

Why Persevering

So you may be wondering why I choose to describe myself as a Persevering Housewife. I spent a lot of time trying to come up with a title that would do a good job of describing me without sounding corny. Once I finally had a revelation for a name....it was taken. This one single thing of coming up with a name and an available URL definitely kept me from starting a blog months ago. Okay that last thing might be a little bit of an exaggeration, but it definitely hindered the blogging process. So here is how I choose a title:

Well first of all I'm a housewife, that one is not difficult. Although I could have chosen something else I prefer to call myself a housewife rather than other terms like stay-at-home mom. Why? There's a few reasons why, mainly because I am more than a mom who just stays home. I like housewife because it describes that caring for my household is a priority and I like that it describes that I'm a wife first and secondly a mom. Though there are no mom-like terms in 'housewife', I think it does a better job of describing me than any others.

I should just get super crazy and make my own term like ChristianWifeMotherDog-OwnerLaundererCookPersonal-ShopperNutritionistExecutive-AssistantBloggerCaffeine-Addict but that would just take up too much time, and it still does not describe everything I do.

Although there is the 'new' term Household Engineer. I just remembered that one. Aahh I still prefer Housewife.

Moving on....Persevering. How did I come up with Persevering? It came to me one day while reading Romans 5.

"And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us."

Romans 5:3-5

One day I was doing my devotional and these verses really hit me. Through the past couple of years my husband and I have definitely been through some trials, and at some moments it is discouraging knowing that we currently do not have what we did have once. There are also some of those days where I feel like I've failed as a child of God, as a wife and as a mother. But these verses are encouraging knowing that no matter the trials we all encounter God uses them to build us up to be a wiser, better and a more honorable person. I know that if I continue to strive to be steadfast in the trials I'm facing I will be rewarded with a hope of better things that are yet to come.

That is why I choose to be a Persevering Housewife, it is my new mantra. That through perseverance comes character and character hope which does not disappoint.

Thank You ATK

I remember a couple of years ago I was pregnant and it was a Saturday morning; pregnancy had taken its' toll on me so I laid down on our couch. I turned on the TV and zoned into a new and amazing PBS show called America's Test Kitchen. It was so wonderful they go through mostly common dishes and tell the viewer what it should be. They go and study the taste, look and texture and then find the best ways to prepare the dish. One show I watched they were cooking a turkey and trying to do it without the use of brining, another they were teaching how to grill pizza, they even study desserts like strawberry shortcake. On top of cooking they even do a taste kitchen were they find the best ingredients and then have an equipment corner finding the best kitchen equipment. I instantly fell in love with America's Test Kitchen and knew it would come through as an alliance in the kitchen. The other day I told my husband that if he went out and bought me all their cookbooks, and maybe some DVDs, he would not have to send me to culinary school.

A while ago I checked out one of their cookbooks at the library and knew it was coming time to return it (I've had it for quite awhile) so I needed to get my last use out of it. I found a dish that sounded kind of fancy and looked fancy too, but the seemed quite simple, Chicken Piccata. Well nervousness set in while cooking it; Will my husband like it? Will he tell me to never make it again? Will he go and find something else to eat?

Well to my surprise after his first bite I heard the words:

"This is really good!!"

My jaw hit the floor. Now why would those words make my jaw hit the floor? If you know my husband you know he is a very encouraging man and is always giving and never brings anyone down. He is a truly genuine guy, but when it comes to cooking I'm always Begging him to critique my food, or rate it on a 1-10 scale, and I usually get the "It was good answer." How is "This is really good!!" different from "It was good."? Well it is VERY different. First of all it was a NATURAL reaction to the flavors melting in his mouth, I didn't have to ask for him to tell me!!! Secondly he used an adverb along with the adjective, emphasising the goodness of the food. Just the thought of the moment still brings me endless joy. And thirdly he even insisted on bringing some over to my parents.

I give so much thanks to ATK for the recipe and how they have taught me so much about cooking. I thank them for providing the means to what I have been praying for for such a long time, a dinner where my husband pauses and closes his eyes to enjoy to flavors that are sitting on his tongue. And a honest critique that is given by freewill.

Thank you America's Test Kitchen you will forever be my friend in the kitchen.

What a week

Wow so time has flown by I can't believe it is Thursday already!!! The past two days I've spent catching up from our weekend. It was a great weekend! Saturday was nice because we did not do much and what we did do we took our time doing.

Then Sunday my husband's family visited. We had a great time, my husband and I took them on their first geo caching (dismiss the spelling error if there is one) expedition. It was fun, we were 3-n-3. I wish we could have found all six caches, but you can't win them all. A great part of the day was discovering FingerPants. Yes I've never heard of them before, but they are definitely and interesting concept. Other than entertaining the kiddos (and adults) I don't think they have any other purpose. It's not like we only want two of our fingers to be clothed, usually we want them all to be clothed and that is why we have gloves. Right? But the Finger Pants were entertaining.









Now Monday we definitely made up for our lack of motivation from Saturday. I'll tell you we conquered A MOUNTAIN!!!! First on our list was to conquer canning salsa....by ourselves. Yes from a little instruction from my grandmother, my husband and I managed to succeed in canning 7 pints of delicious thick salsa. I'm actually excited for tomato season to be over so that way I can pop open a wonderful jar of salsa. (Right now we're making it as needed).

mmmm......tasty



Then while simmering the salsa I told my husband:

"I'm going to give the bathroom a quick wipedown, and later this week I'll give it a good scrubbin."

He replied:

"Why not just do it all now?"

I Said:

" I don't feel like it."

He said:

"I'll do it then."

That's right my wonderful husband scrubbed our bathroom from top to bottom, he even got all the fixtures and faucets to sparkle. He even fixed the leaky toilet. Oh I love how he will scrub for me. But seriously our bathroom was getting pretty gross, the drains were slowing up from the globs of my hair that I never clean out of the sink, and the floor around the toilet had a orange ring from a leak, and I was scared to lift the shampoo bottle to see what had grown under there since the day before. Having a sparkly bathroom feels great (it is very seldom that our bathroom is sparkly) it just makes me smile and I no longer dread washing my hair. The down side to having a sparkly bathroom is that I'm now scared to use it. Yes, that is right, I do not want to tarnish the sparkliness of the bathroom. The other night I brushed my teeth in the hallway because I did not want to get the little toothpaste spots on the mirror and faucet. I know I'm crazy, I'll go to those lengths to keep things clean just to widen the gap of the next time the bathroom needs cleaned.

While my husband was laboring away (we definitely labored on labor day) I got to spend more time in the kitchen, because at the last minute we decided to BBQ with some friends. I went a little overboard with what I put together, but I was on a cooking spree. After cooking my my in-laws and then canning salsa I just kept on moving. The fun part about the BBQ was that everything I made was glorified leftovers. I made the carmel corn from the day before that I didn't have the time to make, then I took the left over jalapenos from the salsa and made jalapeno poppers, we had more veggies and dip, and then I tried the baked bean recipe I found here, and then my husband even made is own BBQ sauce for our chicken. Everything was wonderful and our friends even brought some deliciousness also, we all were wobbling to our cars at the end of the evening.

Yes so Tuesday was my day of rest. Although I did have to scrub some dishes the whole weekend was defiantly worth all those dishes. We had a great time visiting with family and friends. This coming weekend will again be full of family and friends. All my aunts are in town for a gathering and then some college friends are coming home with their baby on Saturday. And then it is my brother's birthday, Happy Birthday Alex!!!! Sunday our church kicks off our Calvary Connecting Communities, we are so excited for this new and different approach to Sunday school. Another weekend full of fun and great food, can't wait.

Sorry for the lack of posts this week, it has just flown by. Tuesday I spent resting and catching up from the weekend. Wednesday my Joy in the Morning bible study started and today is the first day of story hour at church. I'm so excited for fall, to once again have structure and places to be. I'm now challenged with getting my lazy behind out of bed and ready before Dancing Queen wakes up. It will be tough for a couple of weeks, but it will be good for the both of us.

Chocolate

Last weekend we were heading to a wedding.

And stopped at a gas station.

My husband bought some chocolate.

Dancing Queen smelled the chocolate. She has an unbelievable sugar radar....better than me.

Then spotted the chocolate.

Ate the chocolate


















And did not let any of it go to waste.














She is definately our daughter, and we taught her how to lick her fingers well.