The following questions were posted on my blog mentors comments- www.jettybetty.blogspot.com but I decided I would love to hear from others on these topics as well!

I am constantly thinking there has got to be a better plan than the one I am following!!

HERE THEY ARE:

How to keep on keepin on cleaning a house that never stays clean more than five minutes.

How to invite others to clean their messes without being the queen of mean.

How to not kill your husband when he messes up said house and allows others to do so as well while you are out of the home for a few hours.

How to develop and implement a family devotional time.

I look forward to hearin' from ya!!

Sugar free fat free ice cream is really not so bad. I am really doing it. I have gone almost a week without sugar and I don't feel deprived at all. I am thinking of ways to adapt recipes. It is bringing out the chef(Lilly says cooker which is way cuter!)in me. I love to cook and this challenge has broken me away from the monotony I had fallen into.

My girl scouts are finally getting to camp this Friday. Our last trip was cancelled by a freak snowstorm that shut down Western KY. We should be able to not worry about that now!! We will still go even if it rains or storms because we will be in a cabin.

I am looking forward to it a little. And dreading it a little. It will be a lot of work. Today we get to stay at home and I can finish all the things I started yesterday!! The good news is all the stuff on my dining room floor has kept me on top of the laundry a little more because I don't want to delve into it. Usually laundry is the only chore I can really ignore, now I have two chores to neglect and postpone. Laundry is so much more popular than sorting through useless crap and paper and finding a home for it. CALGON TAKE ME AWAY!!! Perhaps I could just buy rubbermaid containers and stuff all this crap away somewhere, wait I already did that.

Look out LAUNDRY, here I come!! Pray for me to focus!!

Sugar busters is going well. Erik is a believer now that he lost six pounds and has even been cheating. I have lost 3 lbs and have only cheated once, last night our care group had pizza and I just ate the toppings on two pieces and whole thing on another two. Then I stopped even though it was thin crust and I could have eaten 10 pieces. I have not cheated with cakes or candy though and I never would have believed I could have done that!!

This morning we had Bob Mills ten grain hot cereal for breakfast and it is awful!! It is supposed to be cream of wheatish, but it has so much grain flavor it resembles bird seed. I must stop talking about it or I will throw up. Steel cut oats are what we wil be buying from now on. Very yummy and still whole grain.
Lilly only ate one bite and the other two ate it all and I managed to choke all of mine down. Erika thought it was delicious. Kayla was just hungry.

I must get off of here and be productive. Really-my house is awful and I can't seem to get my butt in gear. MOVE IT JANJANMOM!!!!

Have a great Monday! (Is that possible?)

"More than thunder, more than thunder. More than thunder, more than thunder. More than thunder. MORE THAN THUNDER. More than thunder MOOOOORE THAN THUNDERRRR." Sings Lilly, my little songbird, as she tornadoes through the house deciding what will be her next "thing" to do.

"Stop singing that Lilly. It is sooooo annoying", cries Kayla my middle child born with no patience or tolerance.

This makes Lilly sing even more and a little louder. Inside I smile a little, until it escalates into a full blown fight. (It ALWAYS does.) I smile a little because she heard this at church. She loves to sing church songs, only at home though. I have done the part of being the example. I have felt the conviction of "Praise me amidst the throngs of people" and I have sung loud enough for others to hear in church. (I am not a good singer and never have been...being around singers makes me nervous because I know they are LISTENING!!) This has not prompted even one of my children to sing in church. They sing with praise music on the radio at home and in the car. And just loudly with no radio or music. I so want to fill their pretty little heads with music about God and Jesus and GLORY! We listen to christian music all the time we are not listening to books on CD's. I want God and everything about him to permeate our life in every way. I am trying tirelessly to overcome the bad vices that I have that influence them with an equal or greater influence of good!

My husband and I have many recurring disagreements and one of them is over music. He is a drummer and also very talented singer(he keeps that to himself but he can sing every part-real high and real low). He does not sing very often-I think he must have been teased about it or something. He listens to EVERYTHING. You can't even imagine some of the things we have been subjected to on WKMS (local college public radio). Irish yodeling, mariachi type music, bluegrass, opera, classical, twangin' country and punk rock just to name a few. The girls think it is great. They have his love for music so I tolerate. I do not like the popular music that is contaminating the airwaves and even some of the "oldies". While he is listening to music, I am listening to lyrics and saying..."Turn it!! turn it!!" I do not hear music very well and can finally pick out instruments, but being a wordsmith, I know the words and I know our much beloved music of yesteryears is awful! The music he plays with his band is as well. My children are SPONGES. Lilly picks up the tune and the words after about ONE listen. This is very telling when she has had a day with Daddy and comes back singing. He does not share my concern over music/lyrics. He says he listened to the same stuff all his life and did not even get what it was saying until I pointed it out.

I bring up all of this to marvel over the differences in what we worry about. I worry about what they will contaminate their mind with and he worries about only one thing...BOYS. I am so thankful and hopeful that God knew what he was doing when he gave us as parents to our children. While our disagreements are so plentiful, I see what we offer them most of all-BALANCE. But I know for a fact boys and men are Erik's biggest panic button. We saw one of our friends kids at Spring Carnival and she is a gorgeous teenager. She has long beautiful blonde hair and looks just like....a woman. I know though, despite trying to look and act sexy, she is still a child. I see it in my older girl scouts. They look so mature and then they start talking about how cool Garfield is or how they miss playing with barbies. It is so important that they have guidance through the "sexy" years when boys and men can't help but notice them. All this greatly improves my prayer life and dependence on God. I am praying diligently that he will guide me in laying the groundwork that will get my girls through those years with their dinity and purity still intact. I had no guidance at all, so I had to learn all things the hard way. I hope and pray that each one of my girls will be open to instruction and cousel through the tough years.

What a serious post I have today. Erika's 10th birthday looms in the distance and I shudder a little at reaching double digits. I'm glad we are away from public school and its young sexiness, but I am not so naive as to think this will be a cure-all. Sexuality in this country is only acted out in schools. Its core is movies and TV and it ripples through every level of our country-even church. We snicker at the sexual innuendo in G rated disney movies. We admit it is out of place but seem assured it is going over their heads...really? For how long? I join you Jacinda in the only prayer that makes me able to keep on keepin' on:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.

Truly words to live by.

Sorry for taking so long to post! I went two whole days without phone or email waiting for my phone company to fix it. I had a decidedly unchristian phone call via cell phone with them yesterday about 4:15. It was fixed within the evening. Why do you have to be so mean to get things done?

I am officially a sugar buster. I have been off sugar since Wednesday. Being a good mom and wife, I have, of course, insisted my family go along for this ride. Everyone is being a good sport except Erik who seeks to sabotage me at every turn. He bought the kids cotton candy at Spring Carnival last night. He never does that. He claims he forgot. Likely story.

It is going so much better than I thought it would be. I am not dying for sugar like I thought I would be and I am not thinking ahead to all the sugar I will be missing. Maybe a little-one day at a time. This is not a diet. This is forever and if I lose some weight that will just be a plus. This is a for my health move because diabetes is so rampant in my family. Pray for me!!

Gotta go, homebased business fair today where I will be on site trying to snag a few for The Pampered Chef!

www.pamperedchef.biz/chefjanice

Spelling bee went well. Kids were pleased with how they did and are willing to do it again next year. They did not win or even place, but I was proud of them for standing up there and spelling. I was also proud that my oldest did not cry when she sat down-she is easily emotional at times like that. I came in second in the adult group. Our accountant (which for us means he does our taxes once a year) won. We had extremely hard vocabulary building words I had never heard of. I spelled a word right that I had never heard of. Jeremy earned his first place! I got $4 for winning second place so that was kind of neat. I did not know there was any cash at all involved in winning so it was a nice perk.

There was a news story last night that one of the high school teachers in OUR community school is on administrative leave for being in an adult film. I am sent little affirmations from God everyday for our homeschooling. I love everything about it, even on the bad days.

My cat seems relieved her kittens are gone. She snuggled up right beside me on the bed last night. When her boobs dry up, we will get her fixed.

Today is a stay-at-home day. I will be getting some housework done I hope...or maybe I will finsh the book I started...clean woman, clean!!!!!

Another one bites the dust. This is why people get webpages instead of blogs.

Susie-the peanut butter banana smoothie that was yuk was the homemade variety. I'm sure Sonic's version is full of ice cream and yumminess-mine was milk, bananas and PB.

I am still very upset about the post that wasn't as I spent a good deal of time writing it. I am just doing a few random things. This is my theory-the longer the post, the more likely it is to be lost in space(cyber that is)

*Kittens are going to a new home today. They will be missed but we will get over it. We decided not to keep one, 2 cats is enough.

*Spelling bee tonight. I, along with my two older children will participate. I hope we don't humiliate the family.

*I can't seem to get over the blahs lately. I blame it on fatigue or possibly all the crap in my dining room I have to walk through seven hundred times a day. There is no where to put it all!!!

*Only 18 more days till school is over. YEAH!!!

*Somedays I wish I could trade lives with Oprah.

*Today is one of those days.