What I have been doing..

Since I last blogged..
 
My oldest daughter started 5th grade, and also started song leading at church.
My younger daughter started 2nd grade
My oldest son started Bridging.. Pre-K AM, Kindergarten Afternoons.. he just wasn't quite ready for K!
My youngest son got potty trained!

We got a new puppy, GiGi, who is a Scottish Terrier/Schnauzer mix... NOT potty trained yet :)

We started Frontier Girls Troop #146, and actually have our first official meeting this afternoon, we had an informational meeting, and walked in the local parade, and ran a free-throw shot booth at a carnival as a fundraiser. I am so excited, this is a wonderful organization with badges like self-control, patience, etiquette! I am in the process of creating a blog for them as well.

I beacame the 4th grade CCD teacher at our Parish. We are learning the Act of Love, the 10 Commandments, and the Beatitudes. They are a lively bunch, who spark wonderful discussions! We are slowly making lapbooks titled God's Rules 4 Life with the beatitudes and commandments and examples of how to live each one; with the Act of Love, and the Great Commandment also.

We had a massive hail storm and were without power for three days, the insurance totalled both our vehicles, so I had to go van shopping, and now we are in the process of getting bids to re-roof the house, new air conditioner, and new siding, front door and screens. And the back mudroom was damaged from the roof leaking. The good that came out of it is I love my new van, we got to sleep at a hotel and go swimming, and we are getting rid of propane and getting an electric furnace! And I get to pick a new color for the house, and a pretty new front door. Thank God for insurance!

And my two daughters started piano lessons, so there is lively music in the house!

Thanks for reading, and I will try to post every Monday, unless I get into another project and need to post more :)

Girl Scouts of the USA

I have been shocked and saddened the past couple of days as things become more and more clear about the Girl Scouts involvement with Planned Parenthood, promoting to girls as young as 9 years old that being sexually active in any form is their right (including masturbation, homosexual and bisexual), as well as contraception and abortions. The Girl Scouts are re-organizing all their badges and award requirements, and I have been researching and studying, and viewing the websites the girls will be asked to view while earning these badges. It is completely appalling! and disgusting! They actually had the nerve to tell girls that masturbation, emergency contraception, and getting drunk and high is their "choice" to make, and it is okay if they choose that! One line in their new brochure says "being forced by law to reveal your HIV status is a violation of your rights, and your partner does not need to know". WHAT????

I would like to share with you a website I found by two very courageous, young, and profoundly insightful high school ladies who were girl scouts. They have very carefully have compiled the new badges and books by the GSUSA and share the links that they expect the girls to go to, and the background stories on these new "Girl Heroines" that GSUSA are promoting to girls as young as 5.  http://www.speaknowgirlscouts.com/

The new badge requirements, and the contents of the Journey books which are now required has made it impossible for me to continue with this organization. I am hoping to have my scouts join me in Frontier Girls or American Heritage Girls. But, all I can control is the part that I, and my family will play in this situation, and where my time and money will be used in the future.

Events like these will occur in our lives, how we respond to them, is what develops our morals and character, strength and leadership skill.

Summer Vacation

I am so excited today is the last day of school for the kids! We will be out of town for 9 days, so I wont be able to post, but I am praying for opportunity to make my blog more of a priority when we get home. The kids and I have big plans, they will be learning the piano, playing t-ball to softball, swimming lessons, nature hikes, the public library reading program and scavenger hunt, and growing lots of veggies and blueberries.

I am going to help them start My Binders. It is an idea that came to me while looking through some other blogs I love, namely Catholic Icing, Catholic Family, and The Catholic Toolbox. The idea with these is to have a large three ring binder divided into different sections of Prayers, Saints, Catechism, etc. and they can slowly add work and findings to them, so whenever they have time for prayer, or spiritual reading, they have a place to go. Hopefully this will also be a place to keep nice all their artwork and projects from CCD. And as soon as I learn how to download and post pictures, I will post some of their books! Another project I have for this glorious summer that is approaching!

What We Do All This For...

Here is a blog post I would like to share about God's love, and Heaven, and what it is like. Please take a moment to read it, it is not long. He is a profound writer!

http://leotrese.blogspot.com/2011/05/part-two.html

The Writing of a Rule of Life

I have been working more on our family's Rule of Life. The first part of the Rule should contain a Mission Statement. The why behind all that you do, and behind how you make your decisions, and structure your time and activities. We titled our Mission Statement:

Our Family Promise

 We are a family, and covenant community, brought together by God, for God. We will live by His commandments, and strive to allow ourselves to be perfected by Him, for Him. God wants us to be loving, kind, helpful, obedient, thoughtful, and wise in His ways. Accepting this, we have responsibilities towards each other to love one another, respect and encourage, forgive one another our faults, and to help each other to learn about, grow closer to, and learn to obey God.

 This is our priority as a family. To live this way we must be disciplined in our actions and thoughts, we must determine and energize ourselves to work together towards this goal set of values and virtues.

 We will show God love by putting Him first, and respecting Him. We will become wise through learning about our faith and Church, reading good books, watching good shows, and working on good community projects. We will accomplish this by obeying each other. When someone asks you to do something, picture Jesus asking you to do it for him. We will also pray together as a family, and if you can, individually. We will learn to be thoughtful, helpful and kind by working together and individually on chores, doing good deeds for each other, and others in the community. 

Then we go on to list our individual responsibilities.

Daddy: Is the spiritual leader, having final say in all religious matters, financial matters, and community activities. He will also work his job to the best of his ability, to financially support us, and our endeavors. He is also in charge of the outside chores, and major home repairs.

Mommy: Is the planner and organizer. She will cook meals, keep the house clean, organized, and laundry; do the shopping, and scheduling; and also keep track of the finances, all to the best of her abilities.

Kids:Will obey Dad and Mom in all their decisions, will maintain their belongings in an organized way, and do their schoolwork to the best of their ability.

I pray that by reading our statement, you will be inspired to work on your own.

Building a Rule of Life

Thinking about Mother Teresa's schedule with only 4 items, I quickly noticed that I had four priorities as well.. God, family, food, and rest. From here, I delved into the practical, monotonous, day by day of these priorities.

The first thing I did was set my wake up and bedtimes, this gave the day structure; not definition, but structure. Then we split the times into half hours from rising to bedtime.
Second I made a list of the prayers that I would like to say everyday, including scripture reading, and Bible reading, then I wrote those prayers at the times I would like to say them. Such as the Divine Mercy Chaplet at 3:00pm. Then I marked a one hour period for breakfast, another for lunch, and a two hour slot for dinner. To include prepare, eat, and clean up.

Then I made a list of what it means to care for my husband and kids on a daily basis. This I am labeling as my work towards my vocation. Taking the hint from Mother Teresa who has two separate times of day for her work, I split mine into household chores, and nurturing. Now to show my real perfectionist personality! I made a list of all the cleaning chores, from doing the dishes to planting the vegetable garden, and you will be surprised to know it fit on one page! Then I split these into daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly. I then generously estimated the time I thought it would take to do each of these items, though some were labeled 1 day, others, like cleaning the litter box, were labeled 1 minute. I found to my surprise that the Daily ones add up to one hour, and the weekly ones were 5 hours, thereby allowing for 2 hours of cleaning 5 days a week, I can keep my home organized and sanitary! I put 2 1/2 just to give myself the leeway of interruptions and unforeseen circumstances. I decided to add this to my mornings, to get them out of the way!


Then I made a list of the nurturing to be done. Reading with the kids, helping with homework, making after school snacks, playing outside, taking them to their events. This makes the rest of my day, which I saw to my amazement was an hour before lunch, and all afternoon.

So I decided to schedule in some Mom computer time!

Wakie, Wakie! Time to get up!

The first thing I noticed about Mother Teresa's schedule was the WAY early rise time! I usually hit snooze from 5:30 to 6:30, the absolute last minute that I can get up and still get the kids on the bus on time! So why is my alarm set an hour early you ask? Simply to have a pray and scripture time before I start the chaos of the day! No wonder things are so chaotic all day. First thing in the morning, I am neglecting my first priority! So.. I spent most of the day trying to come up with ways that I can get myself out of bed on time! (5:30, not 6:30). Since my husband is out the door to work by 4AM, having him wake me, is not an option, though it would be nice to talk to him in the mornings!

I started by asking myself what is different about the days that I do just jump right up and get going.

1. is days that I have something fun to do, or the kids have a soccer game, or we are going on a trip.
2. is days that I have a large to do list because we are having company
3. when I am staying somewhere else, my mom's, camping, hotel

"But" I told myself over some pots I was scrubbing, "in the morning, I get to have a conversation with God!" How much more important and exciting is that!! Perspective!  Let's hope that helps, especially now that I have it in writing! I was up at 6:40, this morning; had a kid in bed with me.

The second thing I noticed was how simple it was; wash, eat, pray, work. 4 items.. that's all.. not a page long to do list with each 15 minute period filled. 4 items. This is what it means to live the simple life. Notice also they pray, and receive Jesus before they start their day, and pray in the middle, and pray to end their day.. just like eating, you pray..

Let us all take some time today to sit down with our To Do Lists, and simplify, can you get yours down to 4 items? And maybe after I in the groove of a 5:30 rise time, I can then get up even earlier to see my husband before he leaves!