Another Sleepover.....and a new bedspread

Sunday morning the older three girls left for church leadership camp. Of course, I got no pictures of it because I was rehearsing with the worship team for church. I did get to say goodbye right before they left because they were leaving from the church, though. This is the girls' favorite camp all year and I do know that they have to hike in with all their stuff about 2 miles once the vans drop them off. And I know that this is the camp Alyssa and Jenna have told me (this is Sammy's first year) contributes to the most spiritual growth and development as a leader. I am so excited that they all got to go this year and I can't wait to see what they have to tell us when they get back.

After church I came home and Tim was sleeping. I figured he must not have gotten any sleep at work last night so I just let him sleep all afternoon while I cleaned up the house from the whirlwind of the girls getting ready to go and made a grocery list and menu for this week. He didn't get up until almost 8pm and we watched the Olympics for a little while and then went to bed. He was still tired after all that sleep so he was REALLY tired.

Tara and I ran some errands today to get a smog check so we can register the Excursion, fuel up both cars (I went and switched cars with Tim at work). It was quite depressing because both cars were empty and run on diesel so I spent over $200 on fuel today. Then Tara and I ran to get some medicine for Duncan (no, he's not sick, it's just heartworm and flea medication) and went to the grocery store. So tonight Tim is working and Tara gets to have a sleepover with our next door neighbor, Megan. We made alphabet pasta and red sauce for dinner because they decided against hot dogs.


I forgot to add that Tim was at Linens and Things the other day and since they are closing, everything is on sale at 50% off or more. Tim found a great bedspread set that included everything, including throws, pillows, etc. on sale. It was just the colors we were looking for and gives us some options when we finally get around to painting the bedroom. The only problem is that Duncan has gotten into the habit of laying with us at night for a little while before we go to sleep (he sleeps in his crate, though) and so I have to put the old bedspread on top of it so he doesn't ruin the new one. Oh well....such is life with a HUGE Great Dane.

Book Review--The Life You've Always Wanted by John Ortberg

In case you are catching up, I was asked to be the special events coordinator for our women's board at church. Part of this job was helping to plan the Beth Moore Event I blogged about a few posts ago. I also have helped with coordinating our "Summertime Talks" we have held throughout the summer and my biggest event of the year will be planning our annual Christmas "event". It used to be a Christmas tea, but we scrapped the tea thing because we would get hundreds of teacups from women from the church to use and it was a nightmare to get them back to them all. This is our biggest outreach of the year as we usually get 200 or so women and many of them don't attend ours or any church.

Anyway, our board recently had our overnight retreat and we were assigned this book to read:

Now, I should have known that our Women's Ministry Director would have never chosen a "fluffy" book for us to read, but when I got it, I really had my doubts. Well, I actually did get it read for the event and I really have to say that I enjoyed it and was challenged by it.

This book discussed our Christian life as training for the race for the prize and then discusses ten different disciplines or practices to focus on. I know...I know that was probably not good English ending a sentence in a preposition, but "on which to focus" sounded clumsy to me. But I digress.....I really did enjoy this book and I have decided that I want to focus on adding or improving one of these practices each month. The first one is the practice of celebrating....this could be a really fun month! As a matter of fact, I do want to find more joy in all that I do and learn to celebrate the little things. Hopefully, I can keep you all posted on how I am celebrating each day and you will keep me accountable.