more of my rambling...........;)

I ran 1 mile today and walked a mile and a half. Pretty good for not running for a few years! I have been a little busy having babies! :) It felt so good to run and today was such a gorgeous day to run! 74 degrees and windy with a touch of rain in the air.......aaaahhhhhhh....... I had forgotten how much I love to run and just be alone, just me, the road and God.

I don't know how many miles I am going to be able to get since I am home all day with the kids and I don't have babysitting close by. Charlie usually doesn't get home until late so that's out. Hopefully, Mom will watch them a couple of days a week for an hour so I can run and the other days we will just walk and I will do some walking videos in the house with the girls. :) That's always fun! They love to exercise with Mama! And, I can always get in some running time on Saturdays and Sundays and I am thinking that will be enough for me! I am not in this for the miles. I just want to be healthy for myself and my family. I want to feel better and be the best wife and mother I can be. That's why I run.

I bought Claire's stuff for her Princess party this weekend. Hopefully, I wil get invitations mailed out this weekend. We also have been invited to a valentine's party on Saturday so I got everything for that, too. I am making Red Velvet cupcakes with cream cheese or buttercream icing (can't decide yet) and placing candy hearts on top. She picked out Princess valentines for the girls and Car valentines for the boys. They got pencils with their Valentines. I thought that was a cute idea.

Tomorrow we are making supper and baking cookies for a family that goes to our church. Miss Tammie's mama is sick so we are going to make her feel better. They don't know yet, it's a surprise! Hopefully, I can get it done. If not tomorrow, I will take it Tuesday. Also, we are going to make a Valentine's garland and work on our letter of the week (A). shape: square number: 1 and nursery rhyme: Hey Diddle Diddle, our theme is Cows and our vocabulary word is calf. We are reviewing or that's the plan anyway!! We are working on grasping objects with Drew and he's getting pretty good at it! Oh my goodness, he is growing SO fast!!

Friday night we all curled up in blankets and watched "Facing the Giants". That is such a favorite around here. We could watch it again and again. :)

Charlie heads back to work tomorrow and I am not ready for that at all. Check out the "My Husband Rocks" t-shirts on my sidebar. I am going to order one and wear it with pride. He definitely deserves it. I have such an amazing husband. Oh Lord, you have blessed me more than I EVER deserve and I thank you!!!

Well, I have to go. Just wanted to touch base since I have been gone all week. I probably won't get to blog much this week, either. I have so many things to do and such a busy week planned with the kids and Charlie.

Talk to you soon, though!! Have a blessed week!!

Love,
Julie

Random stuff and lessons learned

Thanks for your prayers. The girls are still a little congested but feeling better! :o) I am congested and my throat is very sore right now so I guess we will all have it before long.

If I haven't visited your blog lately, I am sorry. I have been busy with the kids and trying to get things straight in my head and in my life. Good luck, huh?! Just been really convicted about how much time I put into blogging. Not proud of that at all. Anyway, I don't know what I am going to do yet. I think I may cut back to just being on here twice a week or something......still praying about it.

I need to finish my Husband Encouragement Challenge posts. I have been keeping up with it and actually doing it, I just haven't posted about it lately. After that I may take a break for awhile. Forgive any grammatical errors on this page. I am tired from a crazy night with sick kids so I may leave commas out or not make any sense with run on sentences, who knows?

And to make this post completely random, here is a link that you must read! This man and his wife completely inspire me. They make me think about who I am and what am I doing? Seems like God is asking me that a lot lately and it's not exactly comfortable. Not that I could adopt children right now but there are so many things that I could do that I just don't. And that is just wrong and sad.

Okay, now I have to go and live my life. I will try to post again before too long. Everyone have a great weekend! :o)

Love and Prayers,
Julie

Being a servant.....

I did something today which I have never really done before. I stopped and actually listened to someone who was cussing and saying terrible hateful words to someone on the phone. Why did I listen? I don't know but what I heard shocked me, not because of what he was saying but because of the pain I heard in his voice. He was talking to his mother and I could hear her screaming and cussing at him through the phone. He was cussing her back but he had such pain in his voice, he was crying.

Why did this bother me, you ask and why am I sharing it with you? I don't know. All I know is that for years I have truly not felt true compassion for people. Maybe that shocks you. GOOD! It should.

I have been wrapped up in my own pain, worrying about how to be self righteous and keep my hands clean. To stay away from all the riff-raff (an expression my father in law uses, I just like the word riff-raff) anyway, to stay away instead of getting involved, getting to know people whether they believe like me or fit into my nice little tidy box I like to put people in. I don't know that kid, but I know pain when I hear it.

Amanda at http://www.mamasings.blogspot.com/ has some thought provoking post in the last couple of days. I know a lot of you won't agree with her or the way she believes, that's okay, she doesn't expect you to. She just says what she thinks and feels. No one in this world agrees 100% on everything, if we think so,then we need to get real.

Some will think that I am even wrong for reading her stuff. All I can say is that I have learned from her and I don't believe any of it has been bad. Yes, for the church of christ people reading this, we do things a lot differently than they do but that doesn't mean we can't learn things from others. The point is, I am through serving myself, I am sure that I will slip up but I want to focus on how I can be a help to someone other than myself. I still think that it is important to be involved in your church, to be the best wife, mother and friend you can be. But, we need to expand our horizions a little bit and try to reach out of our comfort zone. You would be suprised at how you may bless someone's life. The guy I heard today, I said to him, "It sounds like you are having a bad day, I am sorry." He looked at me and said, " Thank you for asking me about my day. It has been really rough." Well, maybe that's all I said, and maybe I should have shared Christ right there but I didn't. I just let him know that someone cared and I go in the store often where he works, so maybe I can help him. I know, you think I have flipped out, but I really feel a burden for people lately. I feel like I need to help carry some burdens besides my own for awhile. Because , what I am really here for, in the end, what difference have I made? I guess maybe I am rambling but it is late. I will post more on this when my thoughts are clearer. I just know that maybe if people knew that we really cared about them and not about just making our churches bigger and being self righteous about everything maybe it would make all the difference in the world.

Anyway, I am off to try and get some sleep........

Love,
Julie


Edited: By the way, I am only talking about myself, I am not referring to anyone in particular, this is the way that I feel about myself and just a lot of Christians in general. Not really about anyone I know. Thanks for reading my ramblings.