A Sunny Place

We are closing a chapter of our life...

We will be closing our business.  The last year was a tough one, and it doesn't look as though it will get better.  We own a small manufacturing business.  We have had up to a couple part time employees other than my husband, and myself doing the bookwork.  Lately it has only been my husband, he works a lot of hours for what the business has brought in. 

This is tough for my hubby as it has been his dream.  It is the 2nd time he has started a business (once before we were married).  This has been 6+ years of his life, and he has poured a great deal of himself into it.  We hope and pray we can land as softly as possible, and may even have to sell our house, but we do feel a moral obligation to our creditors.  There is some relief, I will be thankful to only have to be paying one set of bills.  Lord willing his new job will allow him to be home with the family more (can anyone say Saturdays! :0))    Also, I will be excited to, Lord willing, have some steady income that I can set up a budget with - other than always trying to spend as little as possible.  Don't get me wrong, I enjoy do enjoy a bargain and frugal living, but it's nice to be able to budget and build up a savings account if possible and occasionally enjoy a little family outing such as the zoo, or possibly a museum! :0)

So we enter a new chapter as we close the old one.  Where  will the new one be headed, we know not exactly, but we trust the Lord with our care, and that he may direct our paths and go before us to lay it out.

blessings,

wendy

A friend with cancer at age 34

I have a friend who has cancer - she just found out this morning.  It is thyroid which she's been told it's 99.9% curable.  My poor friend has had a rough couple years, including dealing with infertility, to then adopt, and the agency was pushing the limits on legality - so the little boys father managed to pull custody away from them and they lost him at age 3 months, that was 1 1/2 yrs ago, since that time, still trying to adopt, healing, dealing with illness, and now this...

Have any of you gone through this? If so - what is the best thing I can do for her?  I pray for her and keep tabs with her on how she's doing. 

Mountain of laundry or so it seems

We are getting over the stomach virus thing.. (all but me - thanks be to God - I asked Him to please keep me from getting it so I could care for my family) and it went pretty well.  Only one started during the night and it was 3 AM so we'd gotten some sleep by then, and the others it started in the afternoon - with plenty of time to empty their bellies before bed time for a peaceful nights sleep!!!! Yeah!! I don't handle things well during the night especially after an extended period of sleeplessness.  Ever since I was a babe (or so my mother tells me) I have required a good amount of sleep.  Even in College others pulled all nighters and I was in bed by 10 and not up until a couple minutes before my 8 o'clock class! 

Well, the DS (age 2) is now up on my counter examining the glass caraffe for the coffee maker - not a good thing!

Blessings!!!

ws

Are you my friend?

My husband made a funny comment yesterday... He said, "I was thinking about your friend in Michigan..."  :0)  Well, that "friend" is someone who probably doesn't even know I exist! :0)  She is a blogger here that I read her blog, I relate to her, appreciate her thoughts, and pray for her, and tell my husband things that are going on in her life - via her blog!

I am a true stay at home homeschooling mom.  Church, and the grocery and an occasional errand or delivery for my husband's business is all we get out.  I don't talk to my friends on the phone - they are busy, and because my children are little, it's just not possible. 

I usually read the news daily for some outside world connection.   I was tiring of what I saw - it didn't seem to be anything edifying.  So I found this blog and began to use it as my daily outside connnection.  Reading about your lives, feeling badly for some of you, weighed down for some, connecting with some of the open honest thoughts, fears, and doubts shared, thankful or laughing with some of you. 

So when hubby comes home and kids are in bed and we sit down to chat and he says what happened to you today - or who did you talk to.  Since the kids are usually the only ones I talk to besides him - I began relating some of the blog happenings, as he related what transpired at work. It gave me something to think about and talk about!  So A. from Michigan was talking about some heavy things in her life and I have been sharing them with him throughout and that brought on the comment yesterday. 

So I just thought I'd let you know.... I guess some of you are my friends in an interesting sort of way... and you don't even know it! 

Maybe I need to get a real life!!!! :0)  LOL

Blessings to you all and thanks for your friendship....

Are you poor?

How do you classify yourself?  I recently saw that our income is considered fairly close to poverty level by govt. standards.  Yes, sometimes we barely make the bills, but God has provided - overall I consider our lives rich! 

I grew up in a third world country.  My parents were missionaries.  In that country I saw true poverty, and what we live now in the USA is far from that.  My family once visited a family in our church that lived on the bank of a river in an invasion.  They had a small wooden shack that they called home. It was one room.  There was a very wide board across one side with a makeshift pad on it - this was their "couch" and also served as the family bed for all five of them.  We were invited in to sit on their "couch."  They stood at the doorway and visited since there wasn't enough room for all of us in their home.  On the oppsosite side crammed in the remaining living space was an old TV he had dug out of the trash.  It was hooked up to a car battery since they didn't have electricity. Their "kitchen" was a lean too on the back that she cooked over an open fire with an assortment of pots and pans.  This was their home.  They were so happy.  He had been a drinking man and drunk away much of what little they had to live on.  They had since become Christians.  This man who could not read proudly carried his Bible to church every Sunday.  The church had met for a work day and had taken their previous tar paper hut and made it into a wooden shack instead - they had moved up in the world and they were so thankful and happy.  They borrowed money from a neighbor that day to buy a bottle of pop to serve to us, their guests. It was humbling. 

We live in a very abundant nation.  We are all so blessed.  I ask that we take a moment (and I remind myself) to be thankful for all that we do have, in comparison to so many who barely have (or don't have) enough to eat.  It's easy (for myself included) to get hung up on the bills, or become weary of things finances being snug or tight, but yet....

I have a beautiful believing family, a godly husband, a very ample home, a running vehicle, and many more things... Thanks be to God! 

Thanks for allowing me to share, may this be an encouragement and lift our spirits to be thankful to our Father for what He has blessed us with. 

Blessings!