I cannot believe that I am writing this so soon, but I am.

We are moving on Monday.

We had decided that since God called us to move to Indiana, then we would just go. After much prayer about it, God confirmed this for us over and over. We decided that we would check some options about moving, and go from there.

Our church supports a couple that has a very unique ministry: Transporters for Jesus. Their ministry is to help those who are in the ministry move. We called them yesterday and left a message.

They returned our call this morning. The only day they have available any time soon is Monday. WOW! So we are making many last-minute calls, scrambling around, trying to finish packing everything so we can be ready to load the truck bright and early Monday morning.

So….don’t expect to hear much from me until after we’ve moved!

Our property manager called me this afternoon. “I need to arrange two walk-throughs for your house for tomorrow.”

Two. Did you hear that? Not just one, but two.

No problems here! I told her that both times work (they do). Guess I’m going grocery shopping twice tomorrow. We needed to go to three different stores anyways, so this will work out well.

“And by the way, one of them asked about leasing to own – he’s interested in buying the house…”

Wow God. What do You have planned?

I received this comment the other day:

Just a question , probably a dumb one but ………… Im a furniture builder and stay and work at home-r…For yrs when building i wear pants and shorts etc. Its just become uncomfortable as of late and i have gotten to a place that i just cant stand the confined feeling i have while working . I have been unable to find a style skirt that i feel has a design that will be safe around the dangerious tools in my shop . Ive always been big on safty and i worry about getting caught up in my machinery . Its happened before when wearing a loose fitting T. What do you suggest ? I have no problems with skirts at any other time , Not even when roofing or out hunting or chopping wood. But these large and dangerious power tools and skirts just arent mixing and i need something a bit loose as to be mobil on the job.Any Ideas?

It’s not a dumb question at all. It’s perfectly legitimate.

What about a skirt with a straighter design? One that still allows you the mobility, but is closer to your body than a huge, full skirt. Another thing that comes to mind is a skirt made of heavier material. A denim skirt would be less likely to fly up in a breeze than a thin cotton skirt. Would that work?

Another idea that comes to mind is a riding skirt, like ladies used to wear long ago. You can view a picture of one here. It wouldn’t have to be quite as full as the one pictured…..but you would still have the benefit of the split skirt. If you sew, you could customize it to suit your preferences.

Honestly, I’m not sure what to do. Those are the only ideas that come to mind at the moment. I hope that helps some – or at least gives you more ideas to consider!

I moved some things around the other day and never mentioned it. (So sorry, Stephanie!)

The notebook forms page is now located at this page here. The link to it is over on the left sidebar in the Pages section – right below the main Household Notebook page.

Hope that helps! I’ve been working on updating some forms for my own binder, and when I do, I’ll try to remember to put those forms up here as well.

Do you ever stop and think that what you’re praying for might be the exact opposite of what someone else is praying for?

I’ve been thinking about this the past couple of days. Today our pastor’s sermon was about praying for others and intercessory prayer. It was wonderful! There were a lot of things in the sermon that I needed to hear, and the sermon as a whole was a real blessing for me.

In some ways, it also gave me more ‘food for thought’ to munch on for a while.

I was telling Stephen yesterday about a conversation I had had with a friend about our upcoming move. My friend had started a sentence with, “If it’s the Lord’s will for you to move…” As I mulled it over, I began to wonder if maybe the whole “if” came from sincere concern that we do the right thing in serving the Lord. The reason I mentioned it to Stephen at all was because this friend is not the first person to have said it. There are several people who have referred to our move as an “if” and not a “when.”

It must be hard for friends to watch us pack up everything we own and move so many miles away. I am honestly dreading our last Sunday here, knowing we will say goodbye to many many dear friends. This church family has become so close that they truly are family. I do not want to leave these friends we have made. In all the hustle of moving and tying up loose ends I have not allowed myself to dwell on that last service at our home church. I accepted Christ here – Pilgrim Baptist truly is my home church. They walked with us as we started our adoption journey, and they saw Little man enter our family. These people are my loved ones. Not by blood, but by the heart. They are some of my closest Christian sisters and brothers.

Yet I am torn. God has laid a burden for Attica, Indiana so strongly on our hearts that we can think of little else but moving there. Every visit up there we return with a greater burden. A greater intensity in our hearts that we need to be there, to serve the Lord there. We are anxious to move. And God has shown us in many, many ways that this is what He wants for us. Just look at the many ways that He has provided for us! Money for bills exactly when we’ve needed it. Food right when we’ve needed groceries. Sure, the devil’s making things difficult, but God has confirmed this to us over and over and over again. But how do I explain that to my loved ones here? They don’t want us to leave…

That makes me really wonder. How many people are praying, “Lord, please let them stay here” when we are praying, “Lord, please let us move SOON” or “Please let us move this week!”

I know that there are many who are simply praying, “Lord, please do Your will in their lives – if that’s for them to move, fine, and if that’s them to stay, great, but please just do Your will.” That’s what we want people to pray…that God would just have His way in the entire situation.

So how do you pray? Do you pray for what YOU want? Or do you pray that the Lord’s will be accomplished?

So many trees are starting to bloom here. Our Bradford Pears out front are blooming, the forsythia are blooming, and much to my suprise, my daffodils bloomed. We transplanted them from the front of the house where they never bloomed to out front in our lily garden. I counted 18 buds out there yesterday. Today, I picked some so I could enjoy them in the house as well.

I cut a couple branches from the Bradford Pear tree to add to my little handful of spring flowers, but once I got them inside, I quickly discovered that they make me sneeze. I’m not sure if it’s the pollen or the scent of the flowers that made me sneeze, so I quickly took them back outside. They’re so pretty that I just had to take a picture first, though.

When I went to grab my bud vase, I discovered that it was already packed. Bummer. So I grabbed a jelly jar, and put them in there. Flowers on a budget. (grin)

Since the mouth of the jar was so wide, and since I didn’t pick very many flowers, I put some clear tape across the mouth of the jar to make it a little smaller. You can hardly see the tape, yet it helps keep the flowers in place without being unsightly.

Since the forsythia are blooming so much right now, I went and cut a big handful of stems to put on my kitchen table next to my household notebook. I used another jelly jar for the vase here too. It is so nice to be able to have some flowers on my table, even if they’re from my yard. I think they’re pretty. To me, they really brighten the room.

Then when I headed outside to check for eggs, I noticed that there were daffodils growing in the woods, so I picked one from there too to add to my jar. The yellow just seems to add a ray of sunshine to my little kitchen.

I never did get a chance to post this on Tuesday. Oops…

God provided us with another bag of groceries on Tuesday! This time it was from a different family. This bag had some snack food in it. Yum! Little man just devoured the little fruit cups. It was funny. I am amazed at how God keeps providing and providing and providing.

What a blessing!

We’ll get a call soon saying more people are interested in our house.

I just got a knock on the door a few moments ago – but I was too chicken to answer it, lol! Our property manager told us not to worry about answering the door if the people were here about the house (and it was apparent this person was here about the house – she sat in her car out on the road for a while before she came to the door) so I don’t feel bad about not answering it.

It did scare me a bit though! It seems so silly to admit that it unnerves me that people sit out on the road looking at our house, but it does. So when this lady knocked on the door, considering that I wasn’t expecting a knock, it really startled me. Oh well.

That makes 3 car drive-by’s in two days…maybe more…but these three were obviously looking at the house. Hopefully we’ll get a tenant VERY soon!