Looking for some new Christian music?

My cousin (Jennifer Austin) who is very dear to me, has just come out with her first Christian album of songs that she wrote (there are couple on there that she didnt write and one that she wrote words to the tune Blackbird by The Beatles)
I had to share this with. If you like her music, order a cd and help her out:) They have started to play her song 'You Knew My Name (Before the Fall)' on Christian radio stations. she is not Preterist so her music may not reflect that. But she is very talented and her music is very uplifting. Ever since we were little girls we'd sing on my moms karaoke system and pretend we were on stage. This was her dream and I am thrilled for her.

Here is the link to her website:
http://www.jenniferaustin.com/

10 Good Reasons to Send Your Kids to Public School

I got this from someone else's blog... :)

10 Good Reasons to Send Your Kids to Public School

(Tongue in Cheek)







10. Skill development: Public schools do a great job of teaching children to sit down and shut up while the teacher engages in crowd control and mindless administrative duties. The ability to put one's mind on hold, sit there and do nothing is a skill that will be in high demand in the competitive marketplace of the future.

9. Lack of ability: I could not teach my own child, I do not know how. After all, anything meaningful in life can only be taught by those properly trained and certified to do so.

8. Financial aspects: We cannot financially afford to home-school. Without the school based health clinics, how could we afford to keep our children supplied with condoms and birth control?

7. I want my children to learn all the correct stuff: Given how fast history changes, I want to be sure they are up on the most recent version.

6. Scheduling benefits: Staying on the same schedule as everybody else has its benefits. That way, when we go to Orlando, we can make sure that we spend our time waiting in lines rather than wasting it on all those rides and attractions.

5. Close friendships: I like the fact that my children are spending so much of their time with people not in their family. I would much rather my children's closest friendships be outside the family rather than within.

4. Separation of church and state: As long as we keep church and state separate, then the more time I can keep my kids under the control of the state, the less time they can possible be under the harmful influence of a church.

3. Socialization: What possible better way could there be to give your children the social skills they will need as adults than to stick them with children their own age all day. Besides, the best influence on your child is the one randomly assigned to the seat behind him or her in home-room.

2. Class size: Learning cannot occur in groups of less than twenty students. There is nothing quite like being lock-stepped through material (with thirty other students) to really develop (within a person) that true love for learning.

1. Class pace: I want my child to know how to learn at the proper pace. If a child cannot keep up with the class, then it serves that child right to be left behind in the dust. If the child is learning too fast, then he or she needs to learn to slow down. And besides, what gives any child the right to assume that he or she can learn things he or she wants to learn rather than what the board of education decides should be taught for any given grade level. Anything learned at the wrong time might just as well be left unlearned.

My trip to Wisconsin

Well, actually my trip to Wisconsin is not even half over yet. But its my first time being in this state. I came with my parents and my 2 daughters. First we stayed in a tiny little town of about 1200 people called Iola. It got down to about 25 below 0 one night. The first time I have ever been in cold that cold ever! And well, I felt as if I would actually freeze and die if I stayed out in it with the wind for more than 3 or 4 minutes. Its actually a little warmer today, about 12 degrees. We are now staying in a little bit bigger town called Waupaca.
There are lots of cheese places here and farms, beautiful farms everywhere. Wisconsin is very beautiful and the people here are very very friendly. Some places you travel to, you can tell people are not real friendly but here they are all so nice and happy.
There's not much else to tell about our trip because where we are, there is not much to do here (but I did find some good deals at a mall today) And I did get to participate in a photoshoot yesterday for a book. That was a fun experience.
That sums up my view of Wisconsin so far...beautiful, lots of farms and very nice people.

Precious Jesus

There is a song that whenever I hear it, it really tugs at my heart and soul. I have not listened to it in a very long time and as I got an iPod for Christmas and all of my music is easier for me to get to, I came across it this morning and once again, it made me cry. There are not a lot of songs that can do that to me...but this one just does. It gives me chills. For some reason, ever since I became a mother, things like the birth of Jesus and him dying on the cross have a different perspective for me and make me more emotional about them and I think its a good thing of course.
Its from City on a Hill sung by The Choir with Leigh Nash.

Precious Jesus

I remember you
precious Jesus, I remember you
healer of my heart
lover of my soul

on your sacred head
a crown of thorns pressed on your sacred head
mighty king of the universe, merciful lamb
for my sin you suffered and bled
still father, forgive them, they don't understand
sweet savior, I heard what you said

Jesus, Jesus, we remember
Jesus, Jesus, we remember

as we drink from the cup of salvation, your blood
we remember your sacrifice
we remember the way that you suffered for us

risen from the grave
Christ immortal risen from the grace
at Jerusalem's gate how you wept for the lost
even as palm branches waved
then you proved how you loved us on Calvary's cross
and rose up on the third day
so all who believe might be saved, yes

and we remember you
precious Jesus, we remember you
Jesus, we love you
precious Jesus, we love you
Jesus, we love you
precious Jesus, we love you
healer of our hearts
lover of our souls

my thoughts about this homeschooling thing so far....

Well, here I am, homeschooling. 5 years ago, If anyone had told me, I never would have believed this would be me now. Its fun, and my 5 year old daughter loves it. We actually look forward to it every day (and are sometimes tempted to do it on the weekends!) Its not at all a chore. I was nervous and worried about everything falling in place and getting her to learn what needs to be taught for her level. It is coming together so naturally and easily. And it does not take much time, so I try to stretch it out as much as I can and I add other fun and creative ways to learn as well.
We are in month 2 and already halfway finished with our K curriculum. So in a couple of months we will begin learning to read. (or she will:)
I know I still have a lot to learn and experience in the homeschooling world. We are just getting our foot in and getting to know more families like ourselves.
Luckily, God has blessed me with a few friends who are homeschooling and who have helped me tremendously and maybe I will someday be able to help others who venture into this.
I would not trade this experience for anything. My 5 year old loves it, my 2 year old does, and so do I. Also their daddy enjoys helping sometimes.
Each day we start out with a Bible lesson and prayer and we thank God that we have the opportunity to have this special time together and are able to learn new things together. I have learned so many cool things in the last 2 months that I never knew about some things like dinosaurs, sharks, seals, elephants, etc!!!! And I am spending more time talking about the Bible to my girls on a daily basis than I was before. It was very important to me to get a curriculum that incorporated Bible lessons in, and I knew that would help me to be more disciplined to make that a priority each day (as it should be even without a special Bible curriculum)
Anyway, I am just kind of saying here how much fun homeschooling has been and how it has just come so naturally and easily and my daughter is a fast learner (I know that helps).
If anyone considers homeschooling, then just doesn't see it as 'them' I encourage you to think more about it. Don't just dump the idea because its not what the majority does. And don't listen to other people who like to load you up with negative assumptions that they most likely heard passed on from someone else who knew nothing about it or from some liberal media...think about it for yourself! Pray about it. God will guide you and help you if you truly want to do it.
I was scared up until the day we started. My fears are gone. I know if I stumble, I have people and connections that can help me or direct me in some areas or give me suggestions.
I have mentioned this book before and while there are many books out there about how to homeschool or why to homeschool (and I could not even name them for you), the one book that I read and it changed my mind about it is "So You're Thinking About Homeschooling" By Lisa Welchel. My husband (who was into the idea before me) got me a copy without really knowing what it was all about. After I read it, I was convinced I wanted to homeschool. It helped me to see that you don't have to fit a certain profile. You can have just 2 kids and live in the city and you can homeschool:) It helped me to envision myself as fitting in and being a homeschooler. I have actually read it about 4 times. Its just a book that I enjoy reading. (and it does not bash public school)
If you are considering homeschooling, be strong, because people will give you all kinds of reasons why you should not. But go straight to God an pray about it.
I am just giddy about it and this is my big word...it is "fulfilling' for me. I feel better about myself as a mom than I ever have. It has that kind of positive effect! (and yes there have been a few days where neither of us felt like doing school, that goes with anything) But its been fulfilling every day. I now know, this is one of the 'missions' in my life given to me by God.

God bless!

So I am going to be homeschooling

I just realized recently that the time is already quickly approaching that we will officially begin homeschooling! This coming Fall will be the time. I am still nervous but getting more excited. Today I decided to start re-reading a book called "So You're Thinking About Homeschooling" by Lisa Welchel. I read it a couple of years ago and it really gave me a good perspective on homeschooling and calmed a lot of my fears and nervousness. Anyway, I started to read it again today and I highly recommend it to anyone. Even if you are not considering homeschooling but you just want to know more about it out of curiosity, I think its a great book. Its also for sale in the Planet Preterist bookstore.
I never would have pictured myself as being a homeschooling mom, even just a few years ago. But here we go. I have to thank my husband for encouraging the idea and really wanting to do it. And of course he will help too. Over all, It still seems intimidating, but I know God will be with us and we will take it one step at a time. I am sure once we begin, homeschooling will become more comfortable.
I am thankful to have such an honest, loving, thoughtful, ambitious,Christ loving husband. And I owe it to him that we will begin this homeschooling journey together in several months.
Anyway, check that book out!

Birthday wishes!

I just wanted to wish a very happy birthday to my husband today! He is a great guy & he is all mine!
Happy Birthday sweetie!

My favorite time of year

I have not written anything in my blog in awhile. I have been keeping pretty busy the last couple of months. I like Summer a lot but it is getting close to my favorite time of year. I love all 4 seasons. Thats one thing I love about Ohio. But for some reason, when Fall starts to come, I get so excited. I start looking forward to the cooler weather, festivals, hot chocolate, the smell of the fireplace and putting on a brand new sweater or an old fluffy, favorite one. I also love seeing the leaves on the trees turn gold, orange and red. And the sight of pumpkins everywhere. Also going to our favorite ice cream spot, Youngs Dairy, they will soon have my favorite home made ice cream flavor...pumpkin. These things just give me a warm, special feeling.
Its not quite Fall yet and it is still pretty warm outside. But I know its coming very soon.
What makes it even more special is sharing it with my husband and my two little girls. I hope that we will be creating special memories and when they grow up, they will have the same neat feelings I do about this time of year.
Spring is my 2nd favorite, but I will talk about that another time....

Enjoy the beginning of Fall as it will be here soon! And enjoy the last of this season:)

Saying goodbye to grandpa

I just got back from traveling to Texas with my family. My grandpa passed away last week. I am thankful I got to go and kind of say goodbye. He was an awsome man and a huge reason my family are Christians. He was a preacher and a missionary his whole life. He did mission work in a few spanish speaking countries and even in his last years, in TX, he ministered to Hispanics, he spoke Spanish fluently. He was definately not a preterist (my other grandps is).
Anyway, I will miss him so much. But I know he is with God right now.
He was such an interesting guy, he talked to you about anything. The Bible, photography,ham radios,old western movies, archaeology,his world travels etc....
He is the one that gave me one of the best books I ever read, The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom. I reccommend that book to everyone. It changed the way I look at things in my life.
Anyway, I just wanted to say that Bert M Perry was an awesome man and Christian who helped bring many many people to the Lord. He will be missed by so many people. But especially by his family.

Boston from my perspective

Well, I too got to take a trip to Boston. it was first, a business trip for Virgil, so we didn't have time to do much but it was fun to go along for the ride and experience a few things.
Here are some of the highlights for me.
Massachussetts is beautiful! I never pictured it to be so green and mountainy! its beautiful that is, all except for the Kerry/Edwards bumper stickers and liberal slogans on atleast half of the cars. I did
see a couple of Bush/Cheney stickers, I wanted to give those people the thumbs up but I restrained myself.
When we got to our hotel, I was horrified to discover that there was no FOX news for me to watch all week. Only CNN. Atleast I had my laptop because I couldn't bring myself to turn the tv to CNN. People there really do have that Boston accent. Its just wierd when the only time you hear it is on tv and then you are surrounded in real life by it. I felt like we were in a different country. There are a lot of rude people but we also ran into some really nice people. (when you have two adorable kids, people go gaga
over them)
If you live in Boston, forget ever going out after work. The traffic is so bad (no one follows the rules) that by the time you got to a restaurant, its almost time to close, so forget running to the mall or to the grocery store, you might have time to do one of those things. I did manage to get to go into Bloomingdales because they stayed open late and I actually purchased some lipgloss for myself. It was not an impulse buy, it was a little splurge on some special gloss I had been wanting for awhile. (it has sparkles in it!) And forget buying clothes there! But hey, I can find all of that stuff on ebay for a fraction of the price anyway! But it was neat to look around & drool over the $300 Miss Sixty jeans and that soft french terry Juicy Couture lounge wear.
Some places that we ate at, and all were good, legal seafood,I ate wood grilled shrimp, scallops, tuna, salmon and bluefish, which was a very interesting and delicious fish! they also had some of the best bread either of us have ever tasted. and we topped that meal off by sharing a Boston cream pie which was a lot like tiramisu without the liquer & espresso. We ate the Wayside Inn,an old,historical house that is now an inn and restaurant where I got fresh broiled scallops & shrimp, Boston baked beans(which tasted no different than ordinary baked beans but they were good), brocoli and a salad with raspberry vinegerette.
Across the street was an old church and a little red school house that is the original school house where Mary Sterling attended and her lambfollowed her to school and a classmate wrote the famous song we sing today. I never even knew it was true. It had all the original desks inside still. it was very neat too see. My 4 yr old loved it and wanted to know where Mary is now and was her lamb in the woods? She
literally asked this over and over again.
My favorite place was The Naked Fish. It was a Cuban/seafood place. Virgil had mashed sweet potatos mixed with bananas with his steak. I tried it and it was to die for! I of course got grilled jumbo shrimp
and with it I had brocolini, a wierd long skinny version of brocoli and fried plantains. mmmmmmmmmm!
On our last evening we decided to take a drive to Harvard square. Mistake to drive! But Virg got us through the crazy traffic where none of the cars obey the laws and everyone continuously cuts eachother off. It took us forever to get there, we sat at a standstill for atleast an hour. We never got to get out of the car once we arrived. We knew we should have taken the 'T' or the subway. Anyway, driving through Harvard square was a neat experience. Its beautiful with all of the old buildings and little shops, with hundreds of people walking everywhere. I immediately noticed every car around us was a BMW, Mercedes or Volkswagen. Every guy was wearing khakis and rugby shirts. The guys and girls all looked like they were heading to or just finishing a photo shoot for the latest J.Crew catalog.
It was very fast paced and would have been fun to get out and walk around. Maybe next time.
Through all of this every night my oldest daughter Jade just wanted to go back to the hotel. to her, that was 'Bwah-ston' (we taught her to say it with the accent haha)and she was having a blast just hanging out in our room!
I definately want to go back and see more history,go to Plymouth and Salem and see the witch museum and see all of the other things we just did not have time to do. We had planned to go to Chinatown but ran out of time for that as well.
On the way home we stayed in Erie PA, and Virgil got to see how beautifil lake Erie is. I lived close to there, in northern Ohio as a young child so it was neat for me to see it again.

It was a fun trip but it is really nice to be home. But I definately want to go back to that area and explore more in depth.
Now I can look forward to our real vacation, our yearly trip to Gulf Shores, Alabama! More seafood and my favorite beaches.

on a serious note...

I was thinking, I want to be able share my thoughts in my blog and sometimes I have good things to share,but its been awhile. I am usually commenting and posting with less serious, funny, sometimes lame things. And thats ok. Its good to share ourselves on all levels with other Christians. And sometimes when something hits me that I think is important and can write about, I decide later, no others may think thats dumb or I may not get it out right.
Well, I just wanted to say, I do get a lot out of reading from others on here. And I do have a deep relationship with my God. I am very thankful for the life he has given me. My husband, my two beautiful daughters (and hopefully another baby or two), my family and friends. I am so thankful to him for the simple things in my life. Just waking up and having my coffee in the morning, my sleepy eyed girls giving me hugs, smelling the fresh morning air, the warm sunshine on my skin, looking forward to seeing my husband walk in the door after he gets home from work,the taste of a strawberry drizzled with dark chocolate,my dad stopping by just to say 'Hi'.....and its all better because its from God and because he is with us every day.
Anyway, I may not have any deep,interesting theological insights to share, but just being a Christian, being a preterist, this is a good place to be and share the little things, the funny things and the serious things. And it makes Virgil happy to see me get a little involved in PP. I try my best,I can't pretend to be who I am not, I can just be me. :)

And I have grown from reading your thoughts and articles.

to the Truthvoice attendees...

I had a great time seeing familiar faces and meeting new people and also meeting the ones we hear from on PP every day. I only wish I could have spoken to each and every one of you more. Some, I could barely get a nod or wave to....Our girls were keeping me busy and wearing me out, so I was kind of 'out of it'.
That hinders me from being able to get around talk like I wish I could have.
And last night at the restaurant, they were both so tired and I was a little frazzled, about to cry myself;)
Thank you all for coming and supporting Truthvoice. And I hope those of you in Ohio and Indiana, we will be able to see again sooner than next year!
It is great to make great friends and see old ones. And I know Virgil enjoyed getting to know you guys in person that he had only communicated with online before.
You are all awesome! God bless.

Happy to be here,where the fun starts soon...

I have not posted an entry in forever. Been too busy with stuff going on this Summer and haven't really had anything to post about. but I am happy to be here at the conference this year again. Virgil and his pals have been working hard to make it another great year.
If you happen to be here, I recommend trying the restaurant downstairs (Mela? I think)atleast once, even though it is kind of exspensive. They have some awesome food (and desserts)
Well, I am going to sleep now to get up bright and early tomorrow! Yayyy! :)

Splenda cookies...yum!

I made some yummy cookies today, I wanted to try to bake with splenda and these turned out really well.

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter or margarine
1/2 cup SPLENDA
1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1 (12-ounce) package semi-sweet chocolate morsels
(I used a giant milk chocolate Hershey bar instead and just crumbled chunks of it in there and it is awesome)
1. PREHEAT oven to 375° F.
2. COMBINE flour, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl. Set aside.
3. BEAT butter, SPLENDAŽ Sugar Blend for Baking, brown sugar, and vanilla at medium speed with an electric mixer until blended. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Scrape sides of bowl. Gradually add flour mixture, beating until blended. Stir in chocolate morsels.
4. SPOON rounded tablespoons of cookie dough onto ungreased baking sheets.
5. BAKE cookies 9 to 11 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack.


its supposed to have a 7% reduction in calories, a 14% reduction in carbohydrates and a 19% reduction in sugars

good deals!

I like to shop from toysrus.com sometimes because they frequently have good deals and free shipping. I just noticed yesterday that they have buy one get one free on select Fisher Price toys. Also they have free shipping on a whole bunch of other toys (Mattel stuff like Barbie and Polly Pockets, baby toys and games and boy stuff that I didn't pay much attention to what they were) Some of the stuff with no shipping cost is also marked 50% off the regular price.
Just thought I'd share in case anyone is interested and has a child or someone who collects toys who has a birthday coming up or something.
You have to refresh the main page to see the different deals.