the day after Christmas

It' s December 26th! We survived the Mayan end and Christmas. I wasn't worried about the whole Mayan thing.I know what scripture says about no man knows the end. But Christmas... that's another story! I was indeed concerned about how that would come together!
My wonderful son put the tree up last week.I did some minor decorations outside.Hubby put lights on the cross. It was a better late than never type of season. As usual I was still wrapping gifts at midnight on Christmas eve. Hubby did help a lot this year! And that's kind of a first! We went on a marriage retreat in the fall and I found out I really enjoy working in the kitchen with his help. 23 years later...who' d have thought?! We baked cookie batches together last weekend. I even got new cookie sheets for the occasion! It was fun!
We did get all but one gift delivered on time. I was glad of that! Amazon loves me this year.I will have certainly paid for my Prime membership this year! I think most everyone was happy with their gifts. I got a vacuum(which I asked for) and 2 cooking pans.A new wedding ring,a new kindle fire he (yay) fun stuff!!
Tonight is is cold and windy. Small bits of sleet/snow. yucky- Ness! I am making my friends cheeseburger soup recipe! I will try to review it here tomorrow. :)She made me a wonderful notebook with a zipper pouch for receipts from Christmas . pockets for favorite recipes,pages for traditions and memories.etc...
Better run...I have a sore spot in my mouth and I need to go find some Tylenol. I would usually take Motrin but my cycle was a no show this month so I don' t want to take any chances. I have a few other suspicious symptoms too...but it' s been a really L- O- N- G time since I have needed to even think about it! LOL
 Blessings y' all!
Lora Lee

My word,it has just been crazy here lately! We have our 23yo staying here (with her dog) . We found we had a possum vacationing in our garage ..DH and I taught at a marriage conference last weekend. And the young buck got a temp. Job that I was having to run him back and forth to. This week we had an election, which monkey wrenches the whole week. And my car blew the water pump. So today I have been " forced to stay home! And happily! I have made some serious headway in our room. It's supposed to be a sanctuary. I have been guilty of letting it be a dumping ground, pre-yard sale looking catastrophe. Trying to change that!

well to quote one of my sons favorite commercials "what the ho-ho-heck were you thinking ?!" I was thinking I wanted to blog once at least once a month,maybe as often as once a week. I almost made it back in the summer...in my mind anyway! I took the pictures to post and everything! Then I found it was kind of a pain to try to post from my phone , but all my neat pics were on the phone. Oh and my "smart phone"is sometime smarter than me. Except when it acts retarded. Which is fairly often. The technology seems to have surpassed the hardware that is currently available. Next time I'll bite the bullet and just go with an I-Phone. My son chose an I-phone over a cruise for his graduation gift. And after playing with it a bit I may see why! I purposely avoided political ranting posts. Oh, don"t get me wrong, I could go there but didn't really want to. And yeah BTW my guy didn't win. Most of my thoughts are pretty much polar opposite as to what the current admin is carrying out. My only real response is "Even so , come Lord Jesus" . I personally thing alot has yet to hit the fan , and persecution is coming but we still must ask . And make it our hearts cry. OK, no ranting, so ...moving on! My prayers this year were so geared toward Gods intervention in a wayward adult child's life. Our hearts were breaking to see the choices being made. And knowing how much of it was pride and rebellion. Oh the pain and panic for a mothers (and fathers!) heart. To know that your kiddo is in danger,even to possible death and they choose to stay there. Sigh... God graciously answered many of those prayers! Our dd has been thru more and worse than we ever would have wanted. But she is out of the situation . And after a while is even back home for a while. I think it's a God thing. And I try to remind myself that at frustrating moments. Our youngest graduated in May and is a huge source of heat for the prayer furnace currently. His choices,interests , needing a job,needing direction. Whoa. Overwhelming. More than you ever realize! We need to pray harder now with adult children than when they were little. And God has added a new one to pray for. Possibly a soon to be son in law. In 2013 I plan to again try to post more often. I have to figure out how to do pictures now that I am on a K.F.

or laptop that has no photos on it. Better sign off. The rest of the house is stirring and I have a heck of a lot to do today before the hubby gets home tonight! Blessings to you , and Merry Christmas!

September '12

September was quite a whirlwind month! We have been busy but no more than usual. What has been unusual is that I made 2 trips out of state! And those who know me know that THAT.NEVER.HAPPENS! I had one last moment trip to TN. The mountain were beautiful. The weather was pleasant. I found a couple early Christmas gifts at good prices. I got 2 gifts for my sons birthday. Knives naturally! LOL Then last week we (hubby and I) made a long planned trip to NC. We went to a marriage\prayer retreat. It was awesome! We felt like God really met us there and rfenewed our vision a little. We got some great affirmation at a time we were pretty burned out. God is good!

blue sky

It was raining last night when I went to bed and I checked the weather forcat on my phone and it said rain Monday and Tuesday. So I had an awesome & pleasant. Surprise to wake up to to sun peeking up ina brilliant blue sky! Love that! Now they have changed the forecast to occasional evening showers possible. So I hope it also changes my mental and indoor forecast to getting a lot done! The morning time nhas been on the cooler side this past week and that help me immensely!

Seems my blog has eaten a couple of posting from the warmer mo Sorry for the typos. I haven't figured out how to spell check before publishing while using the Kindle Fire.!nths...weird! Well here we are Septemberish and I am learning to adjust to not being a homeschooling mom. I am doing better than I figured!I have been able to attend some prayer meetings, and help out at church a few days. I amslowly getting a few projects done. Decluttering bit by bit. ....After 20 years in onehouse it is overwhelming the amount of stuff that piles up around you! 8 have gotten the hall closet and living room done... yep,not much but it's a start. My daughter finally got out of the bad situation she was in with the abusive boy friend. And she is back inour life more. We are asking God to draw her fully back to him. We like her new guy and hope that God has big plans for them and they both cooperate! Infamy going to the TN mountains tomorrow nona spur of the moment trip with a couple lady's from our church. Should be pretty this time of year...still green but beginningnto change. Maybe I can get a couple good photos to post! That'd be fun! Next weekend me and my luv. Are off to the NC mountains for a marriage. Retreat. Busy,,, busy! Tired...but in a good way!

I took the summer off

The public school in our county started school yesterday. And it made me realize that I took the whole summer off from my blog! UGH! I really did think of things I wanted to post about 10 or 12 times during the summer . And since I can post from my Kindle Fire or my phone now ...there isn't an excuse! Just summer laziness I guess, I offically worked my way out of a job. We graduated our youngest. I was a homeschooling mom for so long ! I am slightly bereft ! Missing part of my title ! I have kind of taken a summer hiatus . But i intend to roll back in in a big way! I will be exploring the "real-food" movement more fully and I will also be re-vamping parts of our home . Bit by bit , as time,energy and funding allows. Perhaps I can remember to post those up-dates here. Today I will be working on the carpet cleaning more. :-) It got really bad while we were at camp. Our house sitter didn't do a very good job getting the pooches out when they needed to go. Hence , it pretty much smelled like a kennel when we got home. We picked u leavings, cleaned up what we could and have been woring on it ever since. I did find a spray called "simple" to spray on the spots that had enzymes to get rid of the urine. I used about 1/2 a gallon(!)saturated every place that might be a piddle spot & it made the house smell 100% better. I whole heartedly reccommend the stuff! I am trying to get new furniture and I must have the carpet clean first. So... I better get to it! Have an awesome day ! I will try to be back here sooner this time! :-)

Here we are at the end of the school year that marks the end of my homeschooling career. Sad and happy all together.I can hardly wait to see what God is going to do with this kid! Speaking of him...I have to share a funny story! Last week I found evidence that there had been a mouse in my kitchen drawers. Ewwwww...... I know! So I cleaned out the drawers(turns out said rodent has strange taste indeed!It had eaten propel packets toothpaste an emergen-C) Anyway....after cleaning and washing and throwing away and sanitizing the drawers I put back some stuff (like keys and measuring spoons) and went about my business. I have checked drawers often and only found evidence of rodent presence once.I congratulated myself on a John well done. Then... last night my DS (17) says that while he was home alone the other day he head something in the kitchen and went investigating. He tracked down the rustle to the drawer. He Yankee the drawer open and found the mouse. He grabbed a huge knife out of the sink and proceeded to try to stab the mouse, chasing it mercilessly around the drawer. He did not manage to hit it at all but now I suspect that that is the real reason the mouse has not come back! It had nothing to do with mycleaning efforts! Ha! I laughed so hard....almost as hard as my DH did when I said I was going to buy a live trap to catch the mouse! Are we a weird family or what?!? :-)

This week has been a trip! And not to anywhere I wanted to go! We had a fiasco with our dd(22). She is currently living with her bf (and yes she was taught that God doesn't approve therefore we can't either) anyway... Her BF put on FB that he was fixin' to get married again and put her name as it would be if they were married. Yep. I reacted. Actually I put out a plea for prayer over the situation. And then she reacted. And he made sure to declare us hypocrites...again. It's his fave word for my husband and I. Often with GD in front of it. This man is violent. She fled once out of fear and frustration. Then went back the next day. He's an alcholic , has had several DUIs and now she's drinking with him. She has chosen all the family curses we prayed so hard against. We are heart broken. So here we are with an even further damaged relationship to our dd. I sure have cried a lot of tears over this girl. And she's so clueless and so absorbed in her lifestyle of sin she doesn't want a clue. Sigh. Now today I was out in the garden and piddling around with my plants when this horrible scream broke the quiet serene birdsong . Turns out my Blueheeler was trying to kill my chihuahua. (Never can spell that!) My DH had come up with a tie up to keep the little guy in the pen while we are working out there(he's quite the escape artist) But he stretched out his run and got in the shed to see what the min-pin was after (it's a chipmunk) but his runner got tangled on a maddox in the shed and spun it around which made it hit the Heeler in the leg. He must have thought that he had gotten bit. It is bleeding! But he slung the little guy around and had him pinned by the throat. Man, it happened so fast! I was able to get to them before it became fatal. Praise God ! (Cause I'd have lost 2 dogs in one day!) My ds did run out to help. With a gun (of course) Between my screams and the dogs screams all he knew was someone was in trouble! He was doing school work in the house, Poor guy must have thought that someone was trying to steal his mama! LOL....yea....NOT! Sure looking forward to a better new week!

I haven't been able to change the design of my header but I did not have to enlist kid-help to get the blog name swapped over! Lol. DH is home for a nice 3 DAY weekend! Yay! We do have a lot to try to get done though. I would love for him to get some ground tilled. He wants to go order glasses (he's worn only contacts for about 10 years!) We have partting to go participate in to honor some young friends who are getting married on our anniversary. Yay! They are doing their best to do it Gods way. Love that! There is a bachelorette party at a painting studio....perhaps I can post a picture of what I create....if it isn't too hideous! Have a good weekend y'all!

May first! Yay! I am so excited about our anniversary this year. 22 years with my love. God has done amazing things! When we married we were both lost and sinful and selfish. I was only 19with a wild side that won out more times than not. Ppm placed bets on how long our marriage would last. The most generous estimate given was 6 months. Really. We made a lot of mistakes.we hurt eachother alot.somewhere around year 8 9r 9 we were headed for divorcement. But God...that bears repeating ....BUT GOD...God stepped in. Through an inexplicable series of events I came to know Christ as Savior. I gave my life to Him and He truly made me all new. With in a few month my hubby came to recommit his life to the Lord. I will say it hasn't always been easy BUT GOD has made it so worth it...to God be the glory!

Name Change

So...I completely missed March! These last few months have been a blur!(Just a lot going on , just like everybody else!) Tonight I decided to change the name of this blog to "good home". There's a couple of reasons for this. One. I was loooking at a magazine and the title caught my eye. It's called Better homes and Gardens and I had this errant thought that to be on my coffee table it should be some thing like "good home and uninspiring gardens" Good playing on the old Good , Better , Best thing. And then also alluding to the fact we have 6 pets 4 of which "just needed a good home" LOL! Yep! Change is in the air. I am adding and taking away things in the house and my wardrobe. I have begun having that purging twitch. It is a needed thing for me. I have piles of stuff everywhere! Even pile that are supposed to be leaving! I had a huge e-bay pile ... but I am concidering renaming it the goodwill pile. It's really just gotta go! Sigh. I have 2 boxes downstairs that I have no idea what's in them and just tonight realized there's an anonamous box in the hallway too. Now just praying for the gumption to get them looked at and gone! Gumption translates to "get off your butt and do it". (In case you were wondering) Not everyone speaks Southern , sad , but true! Now to go see if I can figure out how to edit the blog name! Might have to enlist a kid to help....sigh....41 isn't THAT old ! LOL

past Valentines....

I missed NewYears and Valentines entirely! You see we moved our main computer up to our newly created office.My mom has had my laptop to help ease her recovery (bubble buster seems almost as good as a nerve pill for her!) I got an awesome Kindle for Christmas and it didn't occur to me until TODAY that I could use this device to blog! SWEET! I am thrilled!
SO.....you might be seeing a lot more of me around here....and less of me too...since I am trying to lose some poundage. LOL
Well,happy (almost) St.Patrick's Day. Just in case I don't make it back here before the...but I. Bet I will now! Yay!