Hello everyone! I hope everyone had a wonderful Father's Day weekend!! I wasn't able to visit my own Dad but I talked to him on the phone and will see him as soon as I get over this nasty cold I seem to be coming down with!

Roger did well with his surgery on Thursday!! He went back to work today.
We had his nieces over this weekend and returned them to their parents on Saturday. They live in Florida and I drove just south of Nashville, Tenn. to meet their parents.
We stayed over night in Nashville because I was driving and just didn't want to drive all the way home to central Indiana at 10 o'clock at night! Roger was able to drive on Sunday which was a very good thing because I had to take cold medicine and I get really "Loopy" on cold medicine!

Kind of a funny/sad thing happened on the way home, though. Roger was driving a car that belonged to his brother in law's sister. We were driving it home to Indiana for her since she had left it in Florida when she picked up the children and had driven the kids' parents' nice van with them back to Indiana. Anyway, so he was driving this older car that we weren't familiar with. Next to us was a whole huge group of motorcycles and suddenly they came upon a semi tractor tire in the interstate highway lane they were driving in. Everyone in that lane (and in all the lanes around them) started slowing down and swerving to protect the motorcyclists. Roger swerved to the left and almost ran off the road. Nothing really happened but our HUGE HUGE diet soft drinks in the cup holders tipped over and plunged to the floor....right into the bag that held his and my dad's Father's Day gifts!! So...Roger wore a slightly stained new shirt to work this morning and I haven't yet tried to get the stains out of my dad's shirt. I think, though, that my Fels Naptha soap should do the trick!

I'm doing pretty well on the weight loss struggle!! I lost 23 pounds in six weeks! My doctor was really happy so it made the office visit with her more pleasant than last time! The past week or so has been more of a challenge to me, though. I think the newness of being a diabetic has worn off a little and now I just want chocolate. In fact, on our trip to Tennessee this weekend, I saw a big Cadillac Escapade that was painted that new creamy pink color. Immediately I thought about Cherry Cordials, wanted some SOOOOOOO badly and low and behold, a gas station we stopped at sold them individually!!! I bought three, had one yesterday, one today and I still have one left. They aren't as good as I once thought they were......I think that sugar is becoming too sweet to me. I GUESS that's a good thing....???????

Well....we have LOTS to do today and it seems that if MOM isn't working and is blogging instead, no one else seems to think that they need to do anything, either. Good grief, you'd think I'd need to set a good example or something!!

Blessings to you all!
Beth

Being My Husband's Wife

I've recently been reading the book "The Excellent Wife". It is a really good book...not necessarily entertaining, but filled with lots of Scripture and information about being a wife. I did not find within its pages helpful homemaking tidbits and that kind of thing. However, I am really learning about being accountable to God for my actions and attitude all the time. I'm learning about being the wife GOD wants me to be regardless of how I am treated or how romantic or unromantic my husband is being or if he is doing everything he is supposed to be doing. Don't get me wrong!!!! Roger is absolutely wonderful, my best friend and one of the greatest blessings in my life. He's not perfect but he's perfect for ME!! But of course, sometimes we DO have our squabbles and misunderstandings. Sometimes, those squabbles can blow up to be a big fight that only hurts our relationship and the relationship with our children. When it comes right down to it, even if my feelings are hurt or I don't think my husband is doing something correctly, it is MY responsibility to respond the way that GOD wants me to respond. After all, I am a wife who is supposed to be obeying God......

A side note....my precious hubby is supposed to be having surgery Thursday morning...I would covet your prayers for him. He also now has a pretty serious infection and I am very concerned about them still performing surgery on him while the area is infected with this nastiness!


Speaking of wives...a few months back, I was asked by my daughter in law, Erin, and my son Danny, to sleep over at their house so that they could have a weekend away. I was able to stay with my little grandson, Liam in their cute house.

This was the room that welcomed me!! Isn't it cute? It made me want to stay there longer....except that I would miss my husband and other children!


This is their little "cottage"! Isn't it adorable? It is just perfect for the three of them (and possibly more in the future??) and believe it or not, it has an upstairs! They were really blessed to be able to buy this house at quite a good price so they were able to start out their married lives with a home of their own! They did lots of work on the landscape and driveway lately.

Here they are at Christmastime with little Liam.

Liam and I made brownies for them...as a surprise when they got back!! (Actually, I think I took this picture another day when I just had him for the morning at their house....) Regardless, he is absolutely ADORABLE!! And doesn't Duplo blocks and brownie batter go together? He is now one year old!!

I am mentioning my daughter in love Erin in this post because I am so very very very proud of her...my son, too...but I am just so proud of her! I have never been to their home when it wasn't spotless...their baby wasn't spotless, beds made, kitchen and bathroom clean, and my son very very happy! She is a wonderful wife and I really wish I had been as good as she is when I was her age. (or at my current age...)

But being an "Excellent Wife" isn't just cooking, cleaning, etc. It is doing what God expects of us in our attitude and reactions. I think my Erin is a pretty excellent wife.

Yeah....I want to be her when I grow up......

Pictures of our "Little House in the Country!"

This picture is of Becca's bedroom.....all ready for a little girl to join our family sometime this year! "Grace" (as we call her since we don't yet know her African name...) will have the bed full of pandas. Becca was very happy to share her room but still wanted to have an "Asian" theme. The rest of the room is very Asian inspired....I just don't have that part in this picture!! :(

I have some more pictures to show you of our little house in the country!! Since I am not very good at any thing having to do with a computer, I have these pictures in the wrong order!! I wanted to show you the before pictures and then the after pictures, but I ended up doing it the wrong way. So.....this is our kitchen with the white painted cabinets. We have opted to keep the pine walls and even the ceiling for now. Eventually we intend to add a family room and change the kitchen somewhat.

To anyone who may remember...there is a little quaint corner hutch to the right of our little kitchen table. It is still there and I LOVE it! (I just don't have a picture of it right now!!)

This is our living room. It is pretty tiny compared to what we are used to having but it is an incredible feeling to know that it is truly ours...(and God's) and that we don't owe anything on it to the bank! That idea makes up for a LOT of shortfalls!!! :)

This was the before of the living room.

And....the before of the kitchen........WOW....it took weeks to paint all those cabinets white!!

Here it is.....home sweet home!! Eventually, we plan to add a covered front porch and change the siding on the front to a wood look shingle. We are also planning to get rid of the "patio" door on the left of the house and add windows like the ones on the right of the house. Roger also has plans for a new window for our living room. (Yeah...we have LOTS of plans....very little money....but LOTS of plans!!) I'm not crazy about the patio door (it leads to our bedroom...) but I am pretty content with it.

The woods behind our house, while not "ours" is lovely to look at and you wouldn't believe the birds singing in the mornings!! We haven't seen a deer there yet but we do hear foxes "screaming" at night sometimes!

Hopefully, I can keep pictures coming as we work on the house. We don't plan to do anything to the new house until we sell the "big" house.

I know it seems strange to people that we have purchased a house 1/3 the size of our bigger one. But when you feel it is what God wants you to do, it doesn't seem strange at all. It seems very comfortable. A year or two ago, we went to a missions conference and my husband asked me what I thought about him writing a check to go to missions. I thought it was fine but realized that it would really hurt our budget. We now feel that we want to be able to do that anytime God asks us to do it. (Not that we will ever have THAT much money...) Not having a big house payment can help us do what God has for us. (Especially if that has to do with our little girl waiting for us in Africa!!! We're still working on the adoption!!)

Have a LOVELY day...I'm supposed to be painting and cleaning the "big" house....and here I am, BLOGGING!!!

Blessings,

Beth

We have a pretty big weekend planned with just Roger, myself and Roger's son Gideon. We are going camping and the teenage girlies prefer to stay in the air conditioning at their dad's place. Imagine THAT!!!! They decided that they don't like mosquitoes and other insects. (I don't blame them!)
We have almost completely finished with our homestudy toward adopting from Lesotho, Africa!! They are waiting for some forms to be sent to them and then the social worker will forward the homestudy to our adoption agency! I can't wait! "Baby Grace", as I call her, is ALWAYS on my mind! (Always in my heart!!)
I'm trying to quickly blog a little to let some of my online friends know that we are still alive and fairly well and dear hubby Roger is loading up some bicycles in the van to take camping with us! We are still kind of living in two houses...the computer is in the original house and most of our necessities are in the small ranch house....which I LOVE, by the way!!!! So I don't get to blog much since I don't really have access to our computer very often!

I've lost ALMOST 20 pounds in 1 month!!!! I don't think I have ever lost that much in a month before but then I have never had this much to lose before!! I'm just really cutting back on breads and sweets and eating basically about half as much as I was. (Which was quite a LOT!!)

All the kids are doing well, finished up with the school year and 3 out of 4 are starting on NEXT year already! Marci is doing college online and a few classes on campus and Jennie and Becca are working for next year's high school credits. Becca is homeschooling and Jennie is doing some senior classes so that she can attend classes for a Nursing Assistant Certificate her Senior year. So everyone seems pretty busy!

Roger has to have surgery on Thursday so if you think about it, keep him in your prayers. It will be outpatient, so it should not be terribly serious!

Blessings to you all! Beth