Projects

Summer Projects
Less than a short, quick month left until the kiddos are back in full swing at school. Seeing how I'll be gone from them for one more week come July 23, I'm desperately trying to stuff as much fun into two weeks as I can. Just waiting for hubby's paycheck to deposit and then we're off to spend some of it. Botanical Gardens, IMAX at the Space Center, Children's Museum, painting these humongous rocks we have around our pool, picnicking with music during Concerts in the Park, hiking Monte Sano and maybe checking out the planetarium. I'm also secretly desparate to get us into the geocaching craze. I have a nutty friend here who takes her girls out every weekend for hide and seek geocaching. It's really cool. Of course, I'd probably get us lost whereas, she being a NASA engineer, knows how to use those dang GPS things. Last, I'd especially like for us to go visit Birmingham for the day and see all the Martin Luther King sites, if we can swing it; it's only about 1 1/2 drive. Tomorrow, is FREE kid's movie day--yeah! We'll have to sneak in our own popcorn and dollar candy but they let you bring in your own drinks. Cannot wait!

Home Projects (sorry this is a really long run-on paragraph)
We have been in our house for a wicked-quick year, come October, and we still have our office files laying in semi-stacked piles on the floor. Our "office" is in an extremely wide hallway that connects one side of the house to the other, more to the point, the family room to the "formal" rooms (living and dining). The area used to be an entryway from the former garage, into the house that also included a back porch, storage area and we think, laundry room. Yeah, it's pretty good size. The "office" is visible from about every room but, most importantly, the front door. All the piles of office files on the floor are in view of anyone who happens upon our doorstep-- friends and burglars, the UPS guy, Saturday-morning Jehovah's witnesses, even the curious, little chipmunk that lives right outside the door. Needless to say, the look is getting a little old, makes me itchy to start organizing and puts me in a testy mood most days. We've (I) decided to go for an office area with file cabinets that look more like traditional furniture than cubicle crap. Know what I mean? Why fix up the rest of the house only to leave big, metal cabinets in full view of every room, lookin' like the Fifth Precinct? Problem is, we cannot afford the traditional furniture look. Okay, we could save for awhile to buy something and we have...but, we always seem to find something else more exciting we'd rather do with the money. Like....Atlanta Getaway or 15th Anniversary Honeymoon on the Beach Without Kids, heck, even a quick dash to Chattanooga for Sticky Fingers. You know, memory-maker moments. I don't know, maybe we're foolish; maybe we're immature; maybe we're impulsive. We like to have fun and not take life too seriously. Our kids will only be here so long and, right now, we're trying to make memories for them and probably make up a little since we've moved them from friends and family twice in the last three years. We're in a great place now (knock on wood) that looks like a keeper and we're crossin' our fingers real tight. After all the kids leave home, we can buy some nice furniture, pick all our files up off the floor and start to care what other people think about our office space. LOL. Funny how blogging brings you to your senses. Cabinets...what was I thinking?!?

Project One Buck
One of my far-away coffee buddies who is now also my blogging mentor, Tammi, recently blogged about a group in Michigan that she and her hubby used to hang with in college. Check it out, it's a pure and simple project.

Blogging Project
As is a common occurrence with me, I've been blessed with another "project" on my heart and I'm praying and working through some thoughts so as not to have to eat too big of a shoe. Hopefully, I will quickly work through everything and still feel the need to blog about it, since I've now mentioned it. Sometimes, I work through a burden and then He takes it away. The burdens are questions, really; questions I have about the rightness, wrongness and often presumptuously assinine assumptions we have in our heads about church, believers and Christ. These questions are a result of my past relationships with the church, my current relationship with the church and what I see as the future church, which has alot of purging and growing and changing to do. See, I almost gave it away prematurely and surely would have had to eat a size 11.

I read too much. Then my brain starts buzzing and the buzzing gets on the Lord's nerves I think. So he takes the buzzing and forms it into a burden and then lays it on my heart. At that point, it can remain a burden or become an opportunity, all dependent upon how much prayin' I do and how badly I'm lookin' for His answer, not mine. Sometimes, the burdenous opportunity shouts in my heart to become public on my blog and other times, it quietly becomes knowledge I've gained to be shared from my heart, individually, when the time is right. How do I know when to share? Usually, the subject of the knowledge I've struggled to gain, becomes a common theme, over and over again, in many conversations I'll be privy to--whether written, verbalized or blogged.

Often after this happens, I question myself...did my questions come to mind because I've been reading and hearing the same theme over and over or did I start noticing the theme because I've searched for and was given the knowledge my burden relentlessly tore at me to find? It's the chicken and the egg. I never really know the answer, once all is said and done, but I'm always amazed at how small He can make the world by plucking all our heartstrings at the same time.

Wow, I think I'm bloggin' over my own head! Sometimes, I just type what's being telegraphed in my head and then when I'm done, I realize I don't remember any of what I just blogged. Definitely, the Spirit moving. Always, always gets me excited and makes me smile real big when I know I've been moved by THE Spirit. What an awesome gift. Sorry if I'm gettin' too heavy for some of you more controlled believers...however, might try steppin' out of your comfort zone; might find you like it and it's VERY freeing.

Have movies to watch, of course. We're a movie family!

Blog to ya' in a couple, k?