The land of spices

And while I'm at it, here is the spice cabinet. It makes my heart do a little dance every time I open up the doors :)
A friend came over this week and that was the first thing she said when she came in the house "Let me see your spice cabinet!"  YAY for organized friends :)

(And while I have the camera card out... YAY for a husband who loves and takes care of his truck! OH, and his wife too!)

Coupon Craziness

As a follow up to yesterday, I recently found this website called Southern Savers that I am addicted to.  The lady is A-MAZING!  I have been saving over 50% on every grocery bill which is great -- more money for the "fun" shopping!

I love that coupons save money, but I don't love fumbling over coupons in the aisles while 10 people push their way around me.   So I took this lady's advice and put a system into place that works great for me.  It requires a binder, some baseball card collector sheets (like this), a little bit of patience and maybe some orgami skills.   :)  Just kidding, it wasn't that bad.

So here is the end product.   Each coupon has it's own little "cubby hole"  And I sorted the pages out by condiments, canned foods, snacks, breakfast foods, baking goods, beverages, meats, frozen food and dairy.  Pretty much the aisles of the grocery store that I shop at. Some of the monster coupons have to be folded in half to fit, but you can make it work.  Its a hundred times better than the big stack of craziness I had going on in my purse.  And my purse is sure happy for the extra space :)

Life is like a box of.....

Okay, so here's a tidbit about me.  A confession of sorts.  I love organization.  Sometimes, I like to change my system of organization just so I can organize again.  My spice cabinet? All in the the same little bottles that I bought from World Market (one of my favorite stores lately!) and alphabetized. I just found a system to organize coupons with baseball card sheets so I'm not dropping them all over the grocery store and I was overjoyed. I love organization.  (However, my clothes are doing good to get put on a hanger and my shoes are good to make it to the floor of my closet.  So you don't need to refer me to a nut house yet)

But you know what I can't really organize?  LIFE.  It happens.  And it is messy. And everything doesn't fit neatly on a shelf or in a box.

Life is not simply like a box of chocolates.A box of chocolates usually has a key on it and you can figure it out.  Life is more like a box of melted chocolates.  You might get cherry and caramel together.  Or toffee and coconut.  Blegh.  You can't always separate out the good from the bad.  Sometimes it's a little of both.  Sometimes its just a surprise.  Sometimes it's grand and sometimes it isn't.  But none-the-less, it is chocolate.  It's messy.  But it's good.

Is it Groundhog Day?

I know, I know, it is St. Patrick's Day.  But I woke up this morning and read through one of my online devotions and felt like I was in the movie "Groundhog Day".

Isn't it funny how sometimes life just keeps repeating certain topics?  Or does this just happen to me?  I admit, I'm a slow learner!  And I admit, I lose things, including my mind, quite frequently.  So I decided I better post this so I don't lose it :)

One of my daily online devotions follows up with my post on focus just a few days ago --  I couldn't have said it better myself!

Taken from - http://www.crosswalk.com/devotionals/girlfriends/ 

Today's Truth Proverbs 4:24 (NCV) "Keep your eyes focused on what is right, and look straight ahead to what is good." 


A study was done of concentration camp survivors to determine the common characteristics of those who did not die from disease or starvation. Victor Frankl was a living answer to that question. Before the Nazis threw him into a concentration camp, he was a successful psychiatrist. After his rescue, Victor Frankl traveled the world, sharing his story: "There is only one reason why I am here today. You kept me alive. Others gave up hope. I dreamed that someday I would be here telling you how I, Victor Frankl, had survived the Nazi concentration camps. I've never been here before, I've never seen any of you before, and I've never given this speech before. But in my dreams, I have stood before you and said these words a thousand times."

Outlook determines outcome.  Victor Frankl survived because he chose a right focus, keeping his eyes fixed on what was ahead. Proverbs 4:25 explains, "We need to keep our eyes focused on what is right and look straight ahead to what is good." The picture painted here is one of an "upright" life, a life of "moral purity." We serve a holy God who is very serious about sin - serious enough to send His son, Jesus Christ, as payment for that sin. We claim the miracle of blood-bought forgiveness while flirting with sin. We give lip-service to God's sacrifice while allowing impurity to negate its power in our lives. We point others to the cross when we are the ones in desperate need of its deliverance.

When it comes to having a right focus, not only do we need to turn away from what is worthless but to turn to what is worthy. In yesterday's devotion, we discovered that Satan knows if he can control the mind, then he has won the battle. Who wins that battle is up to us and hinges on the choices that we make. The battle of the mind is won by controlling and filtering what we set before our eyes. In Psalm 101:3, we find an important key to guarding our mind, "I will set before my eyes no vile thing" (NIV).  "Vile" means "evil one or troublemaker." Anything that is not feeding and nourishing the soul is depleting the soul, originates with Satan himself and will bring nothing but trouble. If it is not of God, it will numb you to what is of God. Be very careful what you place before your eyes - books, movies, television, magazines.  We foolishly believe the lie that we "can handle it." If we could handle our sin, there would have been no reason for Jesus Christ to give up His life in order to pay for that sin. We are lost without Him!

I once lived in a small, rural community where cows were familiar neighbors and lost cows a common occurrence. How does a cow get lost? It starts nibbling on a patch of green grass. When it finishes, the cow looks ahead to the next patch of green grass. That patch digested, the cow looks ahead to the next patch of green grass and starts nibbling on that one. Then it nibbles on a patch of grass right next to a hole in the fence. The cow then sees the green grass on the other side of the fence so it nibbles on that one and then goes on to the next one and the next one. The cow finally looks up to discover it has nibbled itself into being lost.

We do the same thing. We bury our heads in the patches of everyday living. We make a single wrong choice and instead of looking up for forgiveness, instead of looking straight ahead for new direction, we look around for another wrong choice. Soon, we find ourselves at the bottom of a pit wondering how we got there. We must learn to keep our glance on the circumstances and our gaze on Him.

Dear Dad,

I recently read that there are over 24 million youth in America that grow up without a father and I wanted to take a chance to tell you "Thank You" for stepping up and being the man that God called you to be.  I could have written a letter, but who does that anymore?  Plus, seeing how bad I am about taking letters to the post office, I probably would've made it to Maryland before the letter!

You have truly inspired me and influenced me to be who I am. Growing up as Daddy's Little Girl, I always knew you were my man to run to if I had questions or problems.  You modeled the open arms that God our Father has towards us, which in turn made it easier for me to turn to Him when I have questions that can't be answered by anyone here on Earth.

You have always shown the women in your life love and respect and in turn, I knew how a man was supposed to treat a woman.  And I expected nothing less from the men I dated and from the man I married.

You always let me know that you expected the best out of me and because of that, I in turn expect the best out of myself.  And even when things didn't turn out for the best, you always kept smiling.... helping us all to keep going.

And on top of all of that, you were have never been afraid to be goofy and have fun.  And because of that, I too can just relax, be silly and enjoy life.

You may not have a lot to show for in this life, but believe me, the things you have showed me in life are more than any car, house or bank account in this world.  I love you!

Happy Birthday! 

Still your Little Girl,
Kacey

Focusing on the positive

Throughout my life, people have occasionally asked me "How do you stay so positive?"   Well, I'm going to let you in on the secret.....are you ready?

I haven't figured out how to have a perfect life.  I don't think I ever will.  I have bad things happen to me every day and  I've had some really "messy" things happen to me or around me. Once you come to terms with the fact that life will never be perfect and things will not always go as you plan, the secret is to focus on the positive.

Here's an example.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100313/ap_on_re_us/us_obama_education

There are plenty of issues from the administration that I could choose to go bananas over.  But instead, I would like to commend our President for taking the issue of education seriously and vowing to make changes to the No Child Left Behind Act.  While I know our former President had great intentions on putting this Act into place, it isn't working.  Living and working in a county where 80% of our schools haven't met adequate yearly progress, I've noticed that educators are spending far too much time worrying about how well the kids are going to test and not enough time worrying if the kids are actually learning.  So, props to you Mr. Obama.

Another example?
Someone gave me a statistic the other day that by the age of 17, 50% of American teenagers have had sexual relations.  My response?  Well, that's great!  No, I don't believe it is great that by 17, half of our teenagers have given away a part of them that they can't get back.  BUT, look at the other side of the glass.  It shows that 50% of teenagers HAVEN'T had sex by the age of 17.   So now teenagers are going to have to have a better excuse than everybody is doing it.  Because they aren't!!!!!!!!

If I chose to focus on all the negative in my life and in this world, I would be miserable.  In every bad situation, there is always something good.  You just have to figure out where your focus is going to be.

When you get a donut, do you focus on the hole in the donut or the donut itself?  Most people focus on the warm doughy goodness.  If you focused on the big hole in the center, you probably wouldn't enjoy the donut.  Instead of focusing on the "holes" we should focus on the "whole" picture -- life isn't ALL bad! 
 

Can I have an adult menu please?

Do you remember being too old for the kids menu and proudly asking for an adult menu?  My little sister is so ready for the day that she doesn't have to even consider the children's menu anymore.  Me?  I'd much rather order off the kids menu at a restaurant... the portion sizes are a little more appropriate.  ANYWAY...

If you are old enough to order off the adult menu... what else are you old enough for?  Should you be ready for everything on the adult menu of life?  Work?  Responsibilities?  Oh the pain these words cause teenagers. But only because they've been trained to think that these things are against them.

When child labor laws were put into effect is when "teenagers" were really "invented".  Before, you were either a child or an adult.   Don't believe me?  Go get your concordance and look up the word teenager or teen in the Bible.... I'll wait.





::crickets chirping::

Couldn't find it?  Neither could I... but look what I did find.

1 Corinthians 13:11 - When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.


Hmm. Interesting. There was no middle stage mentioned.  Either child or adult.  No option to be in the middle.  So teens, I ask you... which do you consider yourself to be?  And adults, how do you treat teenagers?  If we are treating them like children, they will act like children.  If however, we raise the bar and expect them to act like adults... maybe just maybe they'll surprise you!

Next up.. it's about to get good....

1 Corinthians 4:11 - Brothers, stop thinking like children.  In regard to evil, be infants, but in your thinking be adults

Again, no in between stage here.  This verse is right on... but unfortunately our culture screams the exact opposite to our children....doesn't it? Be MATURE in your EVIL but be IMMATURE and infant like in your THINKING. Ugh. 

So, before I get way up on this soapbox.... let me end with a challenge.  Teenagers... think of something that you would love to do and would be completely out of the ordinary for someone your age.... and set out to do it.  These are the best years of your life.  You aren't tied down with bills.  You don't have obligations yet.  Put these years to good use. 

To adults... I challenge you to raise the bar a little bit.  I think the bar of expectation that we as a society have of teenagers is on the floor.... it needs to be raised to the ceiling so that teenagers can rise to the challenge.  It's not hard for them to sit on the floor.   Help them expand their world and fly higher and farther than you ever thought possible!