Welcome to: Acres of Blessings

Daily Devotion 137

Posted by Sister Lori

May 16

A Pig Is a Pig

As a jewel of gold in a swine’s snout, so is a fair woman which is without discretion.

Proverbs 11:22

What is your first thought when you think of a pig? For some reason pigs have a bad name. My thoughts of pigs aren’t very pleasant: muddy and dirty, greedy, noisy, bad smelling, and just overall bad mannered. Are we being fair to automatically put all pigs in this category? Let us give them a chance to prove themselves. Give them a nice, clean pen, brush them till they look nice, feed them in a glass dish, and even talk nice to them for a couple of days; and then see if they won’t improve their dignity.

How foolish! You could dress up a pig and put a jewel in its nose, but underneath you still have a pig. It will still make a slop out of its pen and still grunt. You have not changed the inside. When Jacob deceived his father, his neck and arms were hairy, and the meat he brought was an Esau specialty, but the real person was still Jacob. The Gibeonites tricked Joshua with moldy bread, old wine bottles and ragged shoes, but when the story came out, they were still Gibeonites.

The key verse reminds me of a hypocrite, the person who looks good on the outside but is full of bad on the inside. The good looks and gold jewelry do not change the real thing. The answer is not to dress up the pig or cover up the bad points on a person but to change the character underneath. Let us allow Jesus to

change our hearts so that our character matches the words we say.

Luke Schwartz, Harrodsburg, KY

Just polishing the outside will not brighten the inside.

Bible Reading: Joshua 9:3–27

One Year Bible Reading Plan:

John 6:1–21

2 Kings 15—17

Used by Permission of Vision Publishers

PO Box 190, Harrisonburg, VA 22803

Phone: 877-488-0901

E-Mail: [cs@vision-publishers.com]

22:09 - Friday, May 16, 2008 - comments {0}

We should go through the house and see what we can unplug..........

Posted by GrandmaRosie

Are you plugged in? If you have ever left rechargers or unused appliances plugged into the electrical outlet, you may be in for a bit of a shock. The U.S. Department of Energy tells us that not only do appliances continue to draw electricity while the products are turnecomputers, and kitchen appliances all use energy while not in use. You may have noticed how a cell phone recharger can be warm even when not attached to a phone. The best way to prevent unnecessary energy expenditures is to do a clean sweep of your home. Here at the office, we’ve gotten into the routine of unplugging our water cooler at night. The process is a bit of a hassle at first, but hassle quickly turns into painless habit.

In the average home nearly 75% of all electricity used to power electronics is consumed by products that are switched off.

VCRs, televisions, stereos, products can’t be designed to prevent this sort of passive energy use? Is it simply laziness on the part of the manufacturers, or is there a real design constraint at work?)

The good folks over at Ideal Bite have previously tackled this issue and suggest the following:

· Use power strips to turn off TVs and stereos. You’ll save the energy equivalent of a 100-watt light bulb that is always on.

· Unplug chargers (think cell phones and iPods) when not in use. Only 5% of the power drawn by a cell phone charger is used to charge the phone. The other 95% is wasted when it is left plugged into the wall.

9:48 PM - Fri 16 May 2008 - comments {0} - post comment

A special kind of love

Posted by Alex

The most important kind of love that I feel is from my Heavenly Father... to quote a quote we have posted on our wall

The Love we need to have

For God

From God

Like God.

Recently I have been feeling SO much love from and for Heavenly Father! One of the lessons I have been learning most of all lately is that it doesn't matter what ANYONE else thinks of me... because I have a Father in Heaven who loves me more than words can express! His shoulder is the only shoulder that I can cry on ALL the time, His arms are the ones that I love to be comforted by, and His praise is the praise that is the only one worth earning! His love is never wavering and always constant... and I have SO much to learn so I can make my love for others like HIS.

Even though I don't know who my future husband is... I have in the last little while developed such a love for him! I think that this love truly is starting to become like God's! My sister and I were talking the other day and she said that she wants to come and stay with me when I get married, and I said "Oh, but you have to give us time together!" It was rather funny because I was getting rather defensive of someone that I don't even know! I've started to realize that this love is a very special kind of love. I love lots of people... friends, family, neighbors, and lots of other people... but there are two kinds of love that are set apart, very sacred and special! The love that I feel for my Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, and the love that I feel for my future husband. Those are both loves that I won't feel for ANYONE ELSE!!

I think of my future husband often and pray for him daily, and I can't wait to meet him!! All you unmarried girls out there (and boys too!) learn NOW to love your future spouse with ALL your heart and save that love for them, don't give it away!

My future husband...whoever you are, wherever you are... know that I am learning to love you with all my heart, and I'm keeping it special and pure JUST FOR YOU!

08:42 - Friday, May 16, 2008 - comments {0} - post comment

Gardening Tips

Posted by Kitty

A while back I found a some books at a garage sale for 5 cents a piece and bought several. Most of them where gardening and home project books. Several of the books where written by Jerry Baker. OK maybe I've been under a rock, but I don't have a clue who he is, but his books are great, LOL. So I thought I'd share some tips from his book 101 Great Garden Tips .

To increase the organic activity in your soil, add 1 tablespoon of regular, not diet, cola to your plant food mix.
Panty hose make great ties for tomato plants.
Wash your hands, wrist and ankles with a heavy lather of Fels Naptha soap after gardening. This will help take the sting out of Poison Ivy and bug bites.
Exercise your evergreens to keep them growing tall, full, and wide. Shake them gently from time to time to remove dandruff and older needles.
Evergreens were "ever lucky" in early New England. A pair of evergreens were planted in the dooryard of newlyweds to symbolize health and long life.
Hammer away a the ends of the stems of fresh cut flowers and branches of flowering shrubs before placing them in a vase. This allows them to quickly draw up water.
To hold blossoms longer, spray cut flowers with hairspray.
To dye white carnations, cut the stems and place them in hot water with food coloring added. Let them set for one hour.
Garlic to the rescue: if you put 1 or 2 garlic cloves into your rose bushes, they will never be bothered by aphids or other insects.
You can remove the faded flowers from bulbs, but the foliage must be left on to provide the bulb with food for next year's flowers.
Yesterdays news make great garden mulch. Put down up to three layers of single sheets of paper and then add three inches of grass clippings over the top.
To protect seedings from the weather and varmints, cut the bottom out of a one gallon milk jug and place it over your tender young plants.
For no-mess watering of your hanging plans, let a few ice cubes slowly melt into the soil.
A dose of castor oil saves ferns: add one tablespoon castor oil and one tablespoon of childrens shampoo to a quart of warm water, and give each plant a 1/4 cup of the mixture.
Always mix your plant food with warm water because plants will take it up faster.
Recycle those foam packing peanuts by using them in the bottom of your clay pots when repotting. They are lighter than pieces of clay, and are particularly good for hanging plants.
The best mouse trap bait is pumpkin seeds, you'll find that mice can't resist them.
Trying to trap a raccoon? Use marshmellows as bait, they have a sweet tooth.
Try using a mixtrure of coffee grounds and orange peels scattered arond your favorite plants to keep cats from using it as a litter box.

OK, I hope you found these tips handy, I know I learned a few things.

7:45 PM - Friday, May 16, 2008 - comments {0} - post comment

Saturday's Snapshot

Posted by Chas

My kids and my friend, Lindsey's kids piled in the van taking a little break from yard sales...
I promise Cameo is a happy child... she just looks miserable here, or maybe she was falling asleep... haha!

Have a great weekend!

My Cup Runneth Over...Chas

07:33 - Friday, May 16, 2008 - comments {0} - post comment

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Welcome to Acres of Blessings also known as: AB-Ranch
My name is Jeanette Wood. I am the wife to my best friend, Joe and the mother to ten blessings. We have been home educating our children since birth- our oldest is 19 and our baby is 4. We have given birth to six children physically and four were born from our hearts through adoption. We are currently living on 40 acres up in the Sierras, near Yosemite National Park. The Lord has blessed us richly! We love to live simply and are filled with Thanks everyday for the good work He has begun in our lives. Grab yourself a cup of tea and enjoy reading the sometimes hillarious and other times heartbreaking activities here at AB-Ranch!

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Funny Things My Children Have Said:

After several trips to the emergency room with my Timothy. I said, "Timothy, you really must stop hurting yourself like this. Each time we go through that hospital door it is costing Daddy 100.00!" He sweetly replied, "Is there another way we can get in Mommy?"

As Ezekiel and I poured over the garden magazines we ran across the brussel spouts. Ezekiel had never seen them before and with excitment said, "Momma, Look! They sell bite size lettuce!"

As we prepaired to vacume seal our newly butchered chickens. My Beth-Joy said, "Mom I know we want to seal our chickens but I can't figure out how we are going to get that chicken through that skinny slot!"

Rebekah was blessing me and cleaning out my pj drawer when she came across a new bra that I had purchased. In all seriousness she said, "Mom I just can't figure out why you would buy a bra thats only good for 18 hours!"

Jed was about five years old when he ran out to the kitchen and met me with excitement saying, "Mom I think God made my wife last night! I counted my ribs and now I am missing one!"

Matthew and Samuel were playing when the girls and I overheard them and couldn't help but giggle. Matthew wanted to play house and have a baby but Samuel informed him that, "You can't have a baby, Matthew- you're only a 2T"

While driving I often lose cell phone reception with my Joe. I never realized how much the little ones were listening until one day I overheard them say, "Mom and Dad broke up again!" "No Mommy broke up with Daddy" replied Matthew. "No! It was daddy. He broke up with Mommy again!" Replied Sammy. As I listend I thought it was a good thing no one was ease dropping into their coversation- they would think my Joe and I had a pretty rocky marriage! LOL

While on one of our "girls days" Bethany was having a hard time falling asleep. Grandma encouraged her to count sheep. After a few moments of slience we heard Beths sweat voice say, "Thump" We all thought about it for a moment and then Grandma asked, "Beth what was the thump about?" "Oh, one of my sheep ran into the fence.. that's all Grandma." We couldn't stop laughing for at least an hour.

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