My morning routine

Brakfast of Old Fashion oats,  berry/cherry mix  and plain yogart topped with dark chocolate chips.

Black Coffee.

& Reading "She Reads Truth"

Dress.

Pack Lunch.

Drive 25 miles to drop off son at College EMT class for the summer.

8am

Find a coffee shop with WiFi

check other email blog notifications :

Courage is breathtaking. (In)courage today

Ann's A Holy Experience

My friend Alicia is in Uganda

&Emily P Freeman who has a new book coming out that I  just finished the Advanced Reader Copy.... what a privilege to sneak read. 

Discount order with Amazon 

All this and it is only 8:20 am.

Many changes in the this hot Sacremento Valley heat. 

My next Advance Reader Copy expected this week is titled: Girl Meets Change. 

In the next month I  will  be  moving from my 28 year home. 

My nest is nearly empty.

My job is at the same location, but completely new in August when school starts.

I don't know which school I  will work at yet afterschool.

Meanwhile two more weeks of YMCA summer camp .

One week to pack before school starts. 

So as I  sit at my favorite Starbucks,  sipping a tall decaf with two pumps of peppermint on ice in last year's "hob nail cup" I breath in my Starbucks community.

.....And I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. (ESV) Philippians 1:6

My New Littles

My blog has been neglected since I started working again. I started working as an Instructional Aid in February and now two months later I feel that I have always done this job. My "littles" are so fun and though they shared a nasty bug with me that took me out for the entire Easter Break I love everyone of them.

Each year one of the classes makes a book and writes a piece about what they like best about themselves. This year the class chose me as one of the special people who gets a copy of the book.

Another adventure I have undertaken is being a Norwex consultant.

In May I am having a fund raiser for my friend Alicia McCauley. She is collection money for solar lights for Uganda. I have decided that 20% of my sales that I will submit on May 8th will go toward her cause. You can donate directly to Vigilante Kindness or if you want Norwex products I will be donating 20% off the top of ordered products through May 8th. 

I am slowly getting use to the my offspring being spread all over  Northern California. We have two big graduations this next month. Johanna will be graduating from Humboldt State on May 16th and Abbie will be graduating from Sacramento State on May 22nd. My elementary school is very evolved in encouraging college so, I wear my College "Mom" T-shirts on Monday while my littles are wearing the college that their individual classes support. My Kinders have cute little purple t-shirts for their Lutheran  College. Their 4th grade buddies have green Humboldt State T-shits.

I am recovering from bronchitis that had me down the entire Easter Break, but was able to make my 1st $1,000 sales goal in my first 30 days with Norwex even sick. This is a great product that is good for the environment and the people who use them. I have also been impressed with how well they take care of their reps. I was able to sign up for free in March (normally it is $200) and I have about $500 in free stuff for meeting that $1,000 goal. 

The other thing that has had a great impact in my changing season has been a Bible Study online with Tracie Miles. The study is on her book Your Life Still Counts. The study is winding down after 6 weeks and this last week she challenged us to metaphorically put our feet in the Jordan River.  I can see that I am living these verse now in Joshua 3. I have stepped out of the old comfort zone and I am going into my promised land. No doubt there are still giants in the land. However:

Joshua 1:9 (ESV)

    "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

Welcoming Spring

In many parts of the USA it is not even close to Spring, but here is Northern California it seems Spring has Sprung.

My son had a four day weekend for the President Holidays, so I did my lastest Spring Cleaning and reflection before I start work next Monday.

This weekend I discovered a new Blog: Alume. They had a conference in October and I was blessed by their website to view  FIVE of the Keynote speakers.

*  I had recently read Sophie Hudson's book: A Little Sweet to cut the Salty as a free e-book. It was exciting to see her speak and her message that we need not be competitive in our blog world was refreshing to hear.

*  Logan Wolfram was a new name to me and she was the head of the conference. Her encouragement to get a Turquoise Table or in my case a Turquoise Table Cloth for Starbucks to exercise hospitality where I live helped to affirm the way my mind has been running lately on the subject of hospitality.  Hospitality is where you live not making something up to look like a magazine or Pinterest.

*  Shauna Niequist was another new name for me. Her book on the Bittersweet of life was compelling enough that I added it to my Kindle account. I'm about 26% through and I have laughed, cried and thought some deep thought since opening that book. (Don't you just love how Kindle tells you how far you have to go and how many hours it will take to read? How do they gauge that reading speed?)

*  Tim Willard is a young man that will take me years to understand. His book Veneer is on the 2015 Gis-Butterfly reading list. He is a Fellow at Oxford studying C S Lewis with a wife and two young children. He really gets you out of the box and his sample book on Kindle shows that he speaks a simple mans language on deep topics.

*  Finally, Jeremy Courtney , he and his wife founded Preemptive Love Coalition. They have assisted in helping over 1,000 children get heart surgery in Iraq. We don't think about what this war has done to the village people of that country. He and his team are helping the Iraqi people to update their hospitals and get the surgeons they need to help this war torn country. They are working from the inside out in Iraq.

So, I did some deep thinking as I prepared for Ash Wednesday and then I got out the old Singer and made an apron for my daughter at HSU Children's Center.

I had a client who was the seamstress for Donna Douglas and she gave me this Dress Form
that was used for Donna as "Ellie Mae" on the Beverly Hillbillies.

My oldest Daughter brought me a Solar Optic Butterfly, Dragonfly and Hummingbird for Valentine's Day to enjoy in my rock garden at night.

Going into the season of lent may I suggest I Corinthians 10:31~

 So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

(ESV)

Paradigm Adjustment

Webster defines:

par·a·digm

 noun \ˈper-ə-ˌdīm, ˈpa-rə- also -ˌdim\

: a model or pattern for something that may be copied

: a theory or a group of ideas about how something should be done, made, or thought about

I guess that last part kind of sums up my thinking lately. 

How do I think about things?

How should I think about thing?

More important:

Do I think about things to much?

I started a Bible Study this month with a group of friends in the book, Power in the Blood of Christ, by Jennifer Kennedy Dean. In this book she states at the beginning that she will shift my "paradigm" about how I view the Blood of Christ through scripture.

We are taking this study slow and in the middle of week one, I have already had some of those, "ah ha" moments. She starts, fittingly, at Genius and is showing that blood is the force in life and that life was "breathed" into Adam, which we know give oxygen to our blood and off we go... 

It has been over three months since I have wanted to make a blog post. On Oct 1st, 2014 I was beginning to embrace my new phone and tablet as a way to communicate and keep updated on the world around me. I was contacted that day by an employment agency and started work two weeks later. The temp job ended Dec. 5th which spring boarded me into the Holiday season.

That job gave me the realization that I really don't want to work in an office shuffling paper and the last two jobs before that one had made me see that I don't want to work in a Call Center either. I have told my children that going to the local JC and living with your parents is a way to try out different fields and see what you want to do with you life... however, it seems we will continue to change what we want to do through life. Career changes are an okay thing.

I just didn't take my own advise. After my kids were grown and I had returned to college to get updated on computer and people skills I went back to the same kind of jobs I had before kids. Now I understand that I was never comfortable in those "office" setting and it wasn't because of my own inadequacy.

So, what am I good at? I home schooled my kids from 1996 to 2012. I often say despite me they are all in college or graduated and doing well as contributing members of society. Could be that I was good at being a home school mom and didn't see the forest for the trees? 

Home schooling was like that for me. It was a blur of daily feeling inadequate, but as it worked out all four of my children survived and have life lesson from the adventure. My failures seems to help them grow to be more understanding adults.

I saw this quote yesterday:

"Healthy and high-functioning people often have parents who do not hide their flaws, especially from their own children. What I mean is this: Healthy people tend to come from families in which parents willing confessed and were okay with their own weaknesses, even if those weaknesses were quite dark. And those kinds of parents are rare, which is perhaps why super healthy people are so rare." Donald Miller, Author Blue Like Jazz

Donald Miller himself acknowledges that he has changed his own thinking since writing the book.

I can accept that I am not the same person I was when I had four kids under my roof ages: 11,12,14 and 16. That was their ages when our world changed drastic at the death of their Grandma Ardie. They had been raised under her roof and though she was in a nursing home the last year and half of her life she had a great influence on our daily life.

Within three years I would have the three girls all at college with me. They each took college classes for High School credit and in turn had units toward their Associates degrees. 

Now in 2015 the two younger girls are graduating from university in the Spring with their Bachelors degrees. I am very happy for them and proud of the choices all of my children have made to bring them to this point in their lives.

I have been sending out resumes to the schools this month for Aid jobs in the public school system. I have embraced my own inadequacies as a home school mom and excepted that I was happiest when I was in the classroom with my kids. (However, our class room was mostly under the Ancient Valley Oak in the back yard.)

I have my first interview on Thursday with my new Paradigm. The result of a season or reflection and a time of prayer.

For those of you who have actually followed my blog. Thank you for checking in on me.

Here is the update on the kiddos:

Johanna came home for two weeks of winter break. This photo she took of Ian and Junior on their walk. Ian is now in his second semester at the local JC taking his general ed with a few classes of Ag and Natural Resources. He and I have been enjoying the Saturday night services at our church and I help with singing once a month.

Johanna and her best friend got in a photo shoot before she headed to see her sister, Abbie, and then I took Johanna back home to start her job on campus on Jan. 5th.

The newly weds are doing well and enjoyed having their little sister visit them after Christmas for four days.

While they were all visiting I took a Mega Bus from Sacramento and visited with my oldest sister in Reno and her amazing cat, Madison.

I have decided when I grow up I want to be a "Crazy Cat Woman" like my sister. (Actually, it is the cat that is crazy not my sister.)

I have no resolution for 2015, but my goal is to stay more involved with what is going on in the moment and not worry about what I goofed up in the past. God has a plan.

Shalom, Shalom.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

 (Romans 15:13)