The power of positive thinking.

All of today's Love Dare was really good today, so I thought I'd share the whole thing, because everyone can benefit from the power of positive thinking. And honestly, I encourage you to read the whole book, because so far, it's very good!

Day 7: Love believes the best.  "[Love] believes all things, hopes all things." 1 Corinthians 13:7

In the deep and private corridors of your heart, there is a room. It's called the Appreciation Room. It's where your thoughts go when you encounter positive and encouraging things about your spouse. And every so often, you enjoy visiting this special place.

On the walls are written kind words and phrases describing the good attributes of your mate. These may include characteristics like "honest" and "intelligent", or phrases like "diligent worker," "wonderful cook," or "beautiful eyes". They are things you've discovered about your husband or wife that have embedded themselves in your memory. When you think about these things, your appreciation for your spouse begins to increase. In fact, the more time you spend meditating on these positive attributes, the more grateful you are for your mate.

Most things in the Appreciation Room were likely written in the initial stages of your relationship. You could summarize them as things you liked and respected about your loved one. They were true, honorable, and good. And you spent a great deal of time dwelling on them in this room... before you were married. But you may have found that you don't visit this special room as often as you once did. That's because there is another competing room nearby.

Down another dark corridor of your heart lies the Depreciation Room, an unfortunately you visit there as well. On its walls are written the things that bother and irritate you about your spouse. These things were placed there out of frustration, hurt feelings, and the disappointment of unmet expectations.

This room is lined with the weaknesses and failures of your husband and wife. Their bad habits, hurtful words, and poor decisions are written in large letters that cover the walls from one end to the other.  If you stay in this room long enough, you get depressed and start expressing things like, "My wife is so selfish," or "My husband can be such a jerk." Or maybe, "I think I married the wrong person."

Some people write very hateful things in this room, where tell-off statements are rehearsed for the next argument. Emotional injuries fester here, adding more scathing remarks to the walls. It's where ammunition is kept for the next big fight and bitterness is allowed to spread like a disease. People fall out of love here.

But know this. Spending time in the Depreciation Room kills marriages. Divorces are plotted in this room and violent plans are schemed. The more time you spend in this place, the more your heart devalues your spouse. It begins the moments you walk in the door, and your care for them lessens with every second that ticks by.

You may say, "But these things are true!" Yes, but so are the things in the Appreciation Room. Everyone fails and has areas of that need growth. Everyone has unresolved issues, hurts, and personal baggage. This is a sad aspect of being human. We have all sinned. But we have this unfortunate tendency to downplay our own negative attributes while putting our partner's failures under a magnifying glass.

Let's get down to the real issue here. Love knows about the Depreciation Room and does not live in denial that it exists.

But we choose not live there.

You must decide to stop running to this room and lingering there after every frustrating event in your relationship. It does you no good and drains the joy out of your marriage.

Loves chooses to believe the best about people. It gives them the benefit of the doubt. It refuses to fill in the unknowns with negative assumptions. And when our worst hopes are proven to be true, loves makes every effort to deal with them and move forward. As much as possible, loves focuses on the positive.

It's time to start thinking differently. It's time to let love lead your thoughts and your focus. The only reason you should glance in the door of the Depreciation Room is to know how to pray for your spouse. And the only reason you should ever go in this room is to write "COVERED IN LOVE" in huge letters across the walls.

It's to move into the Appreciation Room, to settle down and make it your home. As you choose to meditate on the positives, you will learn that many more wonderful character qualities could be written across these walls. Your spouse is a living, breathing, endless book to be read. Dreams and hopes have yet to be realized. Talents and abilities may be discovered like hidden treasure. But the choice to explore them starts with a decision by you.

You must develop the habit of reining in your negative thoughts and focusing on the positive attributes of your mate. This is a crucial step as you learn to lead your heart to truly love your spouse. It is a decision that you make, whether they deserve it or not.

Today's assignment was to make a list of positive things about your spouse and a list of negative things.  There is different purpose and plan for each. At some point during the day, pick a positive attribute and thank your spouse for having this characteristic.

Katie {Senior}

My friend Nikki has a teenage daughter and she was my first senior pictures! We did a morning session and an evening session, hitting spots all over the area.  GORGEOUS girl, so it made it easy and fun! We came out with a zillion photos but this is a collection of my FAVORITES.

Katie wants to be a photographer so I made sure to encorporate that

Katie loves these wild sunflowers, so I was super excited when I found this spot. Actually, I fell in love with it BEFORE I knew she loved these flowers!

Monday Meanderings - Oct 15

Bible Study... finishing up a word study on God's faithfulness

Memory Verse... Psalm 68:19-20

"Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens. Our God is a God who saves."

Husband Encouragement...
♥ Choose HIM.  Especially during his Outage schedule, I'm trying to reserve his days off just for him and not my extra activities with friends. Also going to bed earlier when he goes to bed instead of staying up late doing whatever.

♥ Making sure the meals I cook will provide leftovers for him to take to work.

♥ Love Dare. I forgot about this all of last week!

Train Them Up...

* Family dinner clean-up routine. 

* Working to help Carter with independence with the potty.  Because he sits on the big potty and can't get up there on his own, I'm instructing him to push the stool over and get there himself so if I happen to be unavailable he can still get to the potty without an accident.  He's doing really well, just need to continue to be consistent!

* Reading time with Hannah in the afternoon.

* We've been doing sooo much family reading lately, I've been lacking in having ELI read. Going to add a book (of his choice) a day to his homework time.

* Still working on our Fall ABC book.

Personal Goals...

* Am going to sign-up at the gym so I can workout during preschool without having to drive all the way back home.

* Also starting a new set of "diet rules" that shouldn't be as strict as no carbs at all.

New Habit of the Month...  {october}
>> morning routine.  This sooo sets the tone for our whole day, I really need to get it set in stone.  And it starts with my quiet time at 5:45am, getting lunch packed at 6:45am, breakfast at 7am, out to bus at 7:35am. Then between 7:45 and 8:30 we have plenty of time to get most of our daily chores done. THEN we can go on with the rest of the day pretty relaxed with things in order.

MUST Do... 

* bills

Zone(s)... changing over some of Carter's and Hannah's clothes for the season

Menu - 

M - white chili

T - oven-baked ribs

W - breakfast skillet (in the crockpot?)

Th - fresh taco salad

F - pork roast

S -  TBD

Su - leftovers

FUN THINGS!

* family pictures for someone on Wednesday (possibly? I already know it's supposed to rain but we're gonna try for that anyway for now)

* No preschool Wednesday and Friday so Wednesday we'll get to enjoy Kevin's day off, and Friday I think I'm gonna take the Littles to the children's museum.

3 things I'm thankful for today...

1. God. seriously. it might be so broad and obvious, but I'm just so thankful for the peace He provides.

2. Friends. I am just so very blessed with deeply wonderful friends.

3.  Music. I know I've said this before, but it's such therapy to me.

Fall Senses

I found this idea on Pinterest but didn't see a Fall version so I created one on my own.  Simple really, sometimes I don't get why it takes Pinterest to come up with things? Anyway... the kids and I drove over to town and took a little fall walk around the neighborhood, searching for things for our ABC book (coming soon, I hope).  And after we got home we filled out our Fall words. I did one too. Then when Kevin got home I read each paper aloud and had him guess who wrote it.  Was fun and almost a little poetic. Hope to do this for every season.

Download PDF here.

Kids: Church Notes

Now that my oldest is able to find passages in the Bible, write, and spell on his own, I want to start changing what I have him do in church. So I made up this simple notes sheet for him to fill out, hoping to work towards more active listening instead of entertaining.  Write the passage reference the pastor is reading from for the day. Pick a favorite verse from there to copy. Write your own notes. And listen for keywords (this is mostly a bank of common words to help with spelling) Mom chooses for the day. It's not necessarily just the tally-mark game, but it could be.  It's just a half-sheet of paper, prints 2 per page, plus there's the blank back-side for more writing, or drawing. Simple but hopefully effective! He didn't want to do it last week, but this week I might it more of an assignment, something I want him to show me back home for us to talk about. And it's something I want to (and did last week) fill out for myself too!

You can download the PDF HERE.

And here is a sheet of the New Testament books of the Bible. Just print on cardstock and cut apart. Then select a few or select all of them and have child arrange them in order. Gaining confidence in the   order will help children be able to find Bible passages. You can do the same with Old Testament but we aren't there yet! =)

Monday Meanderings - Oct. 8

Bible Study... finishing up a word study on heart.  It's been really good! After a week of consistent morning time, I honestly do feel so much more at peace.

Memory Verse... Hebrews 12:14

"Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord."

Husband Encouragement...
♥ Choose HIM.  I often choose about anything else besides him.  Walking, 31 parties, girls night, dinner with someone, MOPS events, Bible study.  Sometimes I try hard to plan these things for when he's already going to be working, but sometimes they're things that require him for childcare, and sometimes they're things that are pre-scheduled.  Kevin is VERY supportive (He likes his time to veg too), but I just need to be more guarded of my time and what I'm choosing to participate in.  We may be fine with how we've been doing things, but maybe we're getting TOO comfortable in it.  Want us to still choose each other.  

♥ Hot breakfasts and pie. Pretty sure that's one of his love languages.  =)

Train Them Up...

* Family dinner clean-up routine. 

* Working to help Carter with independence with the potty.  Because he sits on the big potty and can't get up there on his own, I'm instructing him to push the stool over and get there himself so if I happen to be unavailable he can still get to the potty without an accident.  He's doing really well, just need to continue to be consistent!

* Reading time with Hannah in the afternoon.

* Game time or something with Eli after school.  Today we are going to have a roll-the-dice candy corn snack when he gets home.  

* Still working on our Fall ABC book.

Personal Goals...

* Schedule a hair appointment.

* Figure out new workout routine??  We were doing soo good with our walking and had even bumped up to 5 miles but with the weather changing, I just don't know if we can continue.  On Friday Carter was just so cold he was crying and we carried him the rest of the walk!

New Habit of the Month...  {october}
>> morning routine.  This sooo sets the tone for our whole day, I really need to get it set in stone.  And it starts with my quiet time at 5:45am, getting lunch packed at 6:45am, breakfast at 7am, out to bus at 7:35am. Then between 7:45 and 8:30 we have plenty of time to get most of our daily chores done. THEN we can go on with the rest of the day pretty relaxed with things in order.

MUST Do... 

* MOPS tomorrow! Just a few last-minute things to get ready

* Delivering a meal to someone Thursday

Zone(s)... changing over some of Carter's and Hannah's clothes for the season

Menu - 

M - grilled cheese

T - shrimp fajitas

W - ground beef gravy over potatoes, baked apples

Th - creamy chicken and wild rice soup

F - zuppa tuscana soup

S -  TBD

Su - leftovers

FUN THINGS!

* MOPS meeting tomorrow! Followed by lunch for a friend's birthday

* Parent-teacher conferences for Eli Thursday/no school -- should plan something fun for the morning.  

* Outage schedule at the plant starts this week so things will be slowing down for our family as Kevin will be so busy with work for the next month

3 things I'm thankful for today...

1. fall trees.  Every time I drive I can't get over how beautiful the scenery is!

2. quality time with the kids.  Those good-mom moments feel wonderful! LOVE spending time with them!

3.  morning quiet time with the Lord. life is good.