St. Patrick's Day is a day that I tend to hold dear in my heart for several reasons. Perhaps, it is that bit o' Irish blood coursing through my veins, or because I am named Patricia, the female version of Patrick, or the fact that I have a son named Patrick who is named after me, his grandmother, Patricia, and ultimately his Irish great grandfather, Patrick. Even if I didn't have all that to draw me to the holiday, St. Patrick is a worthy man to remember.
I know most of us, including me until recent years, don't know much about St. Patrick. I grew up celebrating St. Patrick's day with leprechauns, rainbows and pots o' gold. But this man, Magonus Sucatus Patricius, is a great example of a Christian submitting to god's will and doing His work. He was kidnapped and taken from his home to Ireland. There, while being forced to work as a slave, he truly found God and learned to listen to His voice. He eventually escaped with God's leading and returned to his home in England, but later God gave him his most famous vision to return to Ireland, to his captors, and preach the gospel to them. He obeyed. He returned to those he knew when in captivity and preached the gospel with such zeal that many found god and came to know Jesus Christ. Amazingly, one of his first converts was his former master. St. Patrick is famous for using the 3 leaved shamrock to illustrate the trinity. He ultimately started hundreds of churches in and was responsible for leading thousands to Christ all because He listened to and obeyed God with enthusiasm. What a great example for us today!
So today, as I remember St. Patrick, I am going to think about listening to God to know the work that He has set before me. Just like him, God has a plan and work for each of us to do. True happiness and glory come through doing this work, the will of God.
"For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." (Ephesians 2:10)
In our home, it wouldn't be St. Patrick's without watching this little VeggieTales short. It is cute, funny, and does an excellent job of telling a bit about the man, Patrick, who changed history in Ireland.
Happiness doesn't occur by itself. You cause it to happen or not. How you relate to life's events Determines your joy or your misery. Whether your feelings are mean or kind Your attitude to life is the key. Don't wait to be happy until things are just right. Don't let life's little annoyances get in the way... You can be as happy as you decide to be. How true this is! I am convinced that we are the sum of the choices that we make. And if you think about it, the majority of the choices that we make are not the big, life-changing ones. They are the small, seemingly insignificant ones: choosing this task or that, choosing how we respond to others, choosing how we deal with each situation. It is all these little, daily choices that really determine who we are and what type of person we are. Will your choices mark you as one who is negative and easily irritated or as one who is happy and finds joy even through the difficult times?
It takes a conscious effort, but I want to choose happiness. One way to do this is to find something to be thankful for in all situations. As a believer, I have a hope that there is so much more than just this life and its trials. So, I can always offer thanksgiving, even if it is merely being thankful that this, too, shall pass. And the times that are the toughest are usually the times that strengthen us the most.
Today is officially Thanksgiving Day and I find MUCH to be thankful for including the family that will gather around the table today and the blessing of the abundant food that will be upon it. But even if there is a dinner disaster, or the sickness that has been lurking around our house attacks, I will give thanks and CHOOSE to be happy anyway.
And Happy Birthday U.S.A.! Today is a day to remember how this great nation began. So, I feel it is necessary to post this video because it is tradition to subject my children and all of you to it. It is a good reminder of why we are celebrating this day.
I was talking with my daughter last night and the fact that today is Martin Luther King Day came up. I mentioned that public school kids are off of school. She got all excited figuring that we would get a day off as well. I informed her that she was not so lucky and she would still have schoolwork. My kids had plenty of vacation days over the holidays when hubby was off work. Now its time to hit the books while we can because before we know it, there will be the "Mommy is too sleep deprived from being up with the baby to think" vacation days, and then , of course, when the weather turns warmer there's the "It's too nice to stay home inside so we are going to the park" vacation days. I figure that we will use this day to take the opportunity to talk about its significance. Usually I print off a copy of MLK's "I have a dream" speech for us to read aloud, but this year I think we may watch this version coming right from his mouth that I found.
In other news.... I'm still pregnant. No shock there, for me anyway, since I am still 6 days away from my due date and my earliest baby so far arrived 5 days past my due date. I think the "nesting" has finally kicked in. For me nesting is more of "Oh my, I have nothing ready for baby yet!" I hunted up the wee baby clothes and soaked them and scrubbed them to get the yellow spit up stains that always seem to appear after clean baby clothes have been stored away for a few years. I have a handful of generic/boy clothes and tons of frilly pink things - a consequence of the fact that I have had 4 baby girls and only one boy and the box of itty bitty boy things is MIA. So, this is probably a boy, huh?
Dragging out the baby things and trying to figure out where I am going to put them has caused me to clean out my bedroom closet. We have a big closet that tends to become the stash for every one's out of season and outgrown clothes that need to be packed away. I decided to pull everything out and catch up on my ginormous laundry pile (Mt. Washmore). This has kept me QUITE busy over the past few days. I am close to being caught up. I just have to pack up some outgrown clothes in an organized fashion which for some weird reason is not a strength for me. Anyway, I am rambling...
I am feeling compelled to get this done quickly because I know that if the baby arrives before I get all of these piles sorted and put away, it may be quite some time before it happens and all my sorting work will probably get undone by several energetic children.
Also in other news... My Christmas tree is finally put away! Last night hubby bundled it up and packed it away in its spot in the basement. I know we sound like such slackers, but I just wasn't motivated to do all the work of taking decorations down and I actually had still been enjoying the warm glow of the Christmas tree lights everyday during my morning quiet time. This morning I really missed them and had to turn on the fireplace so I didn't go completely into withdrawal.
Even more other news... Now is the time to start keeping an eye out for great deals on clearanced clothing. I am a fan of Old Navy's clearance sales and they have a bunch on sale right now and if you use the coupon code EXTRA50, you can get an additional 50% off clearance items. Note that this only works on "clearance" stuff not anything else including their "bargains." (Found this over at Deal Seeking Mom.) I ended up finding a few things for EVERYONE in my family there including the new wee one for some awesome prices.
I should wrap this up and get prepared to jump into my day before the kids all get up and ambush me. Have a great one!
It has been said that necessity is the mother of invention. I believe that. Because our funds are on the short side, it has necessitated that I become a bit more inventive as to how I am going to come up with the many gifts we have to give this year. With 5 kids the gifts add up, not to mention that one of them has a birthday this month, too.
So, I decided that this year as going to have to be a mostly handmade Christmas. I have a rather large stash of fabric and craft supplies that I have collected throughout the years. I figure if I use that as a base for my projects, I can eliminate a lot of cash outlay. This little doll in the photo is the perfect example of that.
I have been working on some felt play food for my daughter for her birthday this year because I know that grams and gramps are getting she and her younger sister a play kitchen for Christmas. But as I looked at what I have made, it looked pretty paltry, so I decided I needed to come up with something else. I got the idea that she would love a special little doll and set forth to find inspiration on the web. I LOVE the internet. Within a half hour, I had not only found inspiration, but a pattern, directions and a video showing how to make this little cutie. I had the doll pretty well put together that afternoon out of some of my scrap fabric.
That evening, I was reading Bend the Rules Sewing which I got from the library. There are instructions to make a cute lap quilt. The light bulb in my head went off and I decided that I would make a quilt for the doll. I used the same fabric that I used for the doll along with some scraps of fabric from the nightgown that I made for my daughter for Christmas. I have never made a quilt before and this was so much FUN! I am glad I that my first quilt was doll size because it was great to see this come together in just one afternoon. It is pictured here with the binding only partially finished. I machine stitched one side on and hand stitched the other. I am going to turn this into a cute sleeping bag for the doll because my daughter is really into her own sleeping bag right now.
I have enough fabric scraps to make the doll some PJs that will match my daughter's and I am also going to make my daughter a little tulle tutu and a matching one for the doll. I just know that she is going to love this. And the best part? The only thing I purchased for this was the quilt batting and stuffing. Everything else, I already had, so it only cost me my time. LOVE that!
I'll have to show it all off here once it is all done because I am pretty excited about it. If you are wondering about the doll pattern, it can be found here on the Martha Stewart site.
I have LOTS of other projects in the works, and it is my plan to start showing them off here as I get things done. Some I will have to keep hidden until after Christmas, though, because my older children actually do read this blog. (So nana boo boo, I am not showing you girls anything!) So do some of others that I am creating for, so I suppose that I will have to watch what I say!
I'm cooking with propane gas! Like my stove uses. Sheesh! What were you thinking?
I'm gearing up for a fun Thanksgiving with my folks tomorrow by putting together some casseroles and baking some pumpkin bread saving just the food items that aren't as good prepared ahead like mashed potatoes and cranberry challah bread.
I realized that I did not have my sweet potato casserole recipe in my holiday planning notebook. So, since I had to type it up, I figured I would do it cute. I used a few things from my days as a digital scrapbook kit designer. Even though I did this fairly quick, I think it is pretty fun.
I decided that I would share this as a little freebie to anyone who is interested. You can download a PDF version of this here.
I am off to finish my cooking and do a spot of cleaning, too. I hope everyone enjoys their holiday of celebrating and giving thanks for our many blessings.
Did you realize that it was time to start counting down to Christmas? The holiday season is upon us! Simple Mom reminded me yesterday that it is time to pull out my Holiday Planner and start getting to work.
Last year, I made the investment in this e-book holiday planner and it was incredibly helpful. The planner is designed to break up all the tasks needed to be done for the holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years) into weekly segments so that by the time Christmas rolls around everything is done and we can celebrate without stress. I didn't keep up with all of the tasks every week, but I found this such a benefit for us. I got much more done than I usually do, too. Most year I have really good intentions to do lots of baking and make a lot of my gifts, but I always run out of time. Last year I got a lot of this stuff actually done!
Although I highly recommend this e-book, if you don't have money in your budget to spend, Simple Mom is doing something similar on her blog. It is worth checking out. If nothing else, this is a good time to start thinking about your Christmas budget, who you need to buy for, and what holiday projects you are going to tackle this year. Lets make sure that this Christmas is a merry and stress-free one so we can focus on the REAL reason for the season, the true gift of our Lord, Jesus Christ.
Did you realize that there even was an "International Chocolate Day"?
I was searching around the web trying to find the history behind this special holiday and discovered that there are a whole bunch of chocolate related holidays. Here is a list from Extreme Chocolate:
May 12th: National Nutty Fudge Day
May 15th: National Chocolate Chip Day
June 16th: Fudge Day (in fact, all of June is considered the official "candy month")
July 7th: Chocolate Day
July 28th: National Milk Chocolate Day
August 10th: S'mores Day
Sept. 13th: International Chocolate Day -- that's right, a worldwide celebration
Sept. 22nd: National White Chocolate Day
Oct. 28th: National Chocolate Day (How is this different from chocolate day on July 7th? Beats me! Celebrate them both anyway, though).
Nov. 7th: National Bittersweet Chocolate with Almonds Day (yes, you read that right).
Dec. 16th: National Chocolate Covered Anything Day
Dec. 28th: National Chocolate Day (again)
Dec. 29th: National Chocolate Day (again)
How fun! I am all for celebrating chocolate. The curious thing is that I cannot find any information on the origins of International Chocolate Day. I am not about to worry too much about such details when a holiday about chocolate is concerned.
So enjoy your chocolate, just make sure it is an international variety!
In honor of the day, I am giving away a freebie! This will have special appeal to all of you scrapbookers out there, but it has some really fun chocolate graphics that anyone would love for their creative projects. The little chocolate thoughts never fail to make me smile!
I watched a TV show a while back where they were doing man on the street interviews and asking people this question. There was many who didn't even know that July 4th is INDEPENDENCE DAY let alone what that meant. They should have been made to watch this:
Uh huh! The Declaration of Independence, In Seventeen Hundred Seventy-Six The Continental Congress said that "We were FREE!" Said we had the right of life and liberty, And the pursuit of happiness.
And to continue the lesson:
and
This may seem like ancient history, but I think it is important that we remember as a nation how we got here. We have only been around 232 years which is a long time in terms of our personal lives, but only a drop in the bucket when you look at the big picture. In this period of time we have changed radically. Do you think people today would make the same sacrifices that our founding fathers did for freedom? I think society as a whole has become self-centered and we no longer have faith in God to drive us. We have been riding a wave of good fortune but I don't think it will be long before that wave will come crashing down around us. There are changes coming and I don't think they will be good. Ok, I'll step down off my soapbox now...[wink]
A little more history:
Ok, ok, I'll stop. Ya' gotta love Schoolhouse Rock and YouTube!
If you are interested, here is an interesting article with a brief summary of the Declaration of Independence.
And in case you don't really know what it says...
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it,
and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
—Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.
The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offencesFor abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.
A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us.
We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence.
They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved;
and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
I thought this was interesting: Easter is always the 1st Sunday after the 1st full moon after the Spring Equinox (which is March 20 this year). This dating of Easter is based on the lunar calendar that Hebrew people used to identify passover, which is why it moves around on our Roman calendar.
Here's the interesting info. This year is the earliest Easter any of us will ever see the rest of our lives! And only the most elderly of our population have ever seen it this early (95 years old or above!). And none of us have ever, or will ever, see it a day earlier! Here's the facts: 1) The next time Easter will be this early (March 23) will be the year 2228 (220 years from now). The last time it was this early was 1913 ,( if you're 95 or older, you are the only ones that were around for that!). 2) The next time it will be a day earlier, March 22 ,and will be in the year 2285 , (277 years from now). The last time it was on March 22 was 1818. So, no one alive today will ever see it any earlier than this year!
For more information about how the date of Easter is calculated, check out this article: The Astronomy of Easter
