Jesus Take the Wheat

We are wrapping up our "Economic Atheist" series at church.

During this series, we have talked about being ethical theists (theist = someone who believes in God), but economic atheists. It's so easy for us to want to control our own finances without guidance from God, the one who blessed us with the talents and resources to have those finances in the first place. For more on the subject, hop on over to 12Stone's website and watch the messages for free.

Last year when on this topic, some of our guys wrote and performed the "Tithe Rap." (Click here to see that one). As you can see on the YouTube page, it got well over 200,000 views and was adapted by many other churches to share with their congregations.

So this year the guys did it again. Here's this year's version, "Jesus, Take the Wheat."

Slow Cooker Sunday - Chicken with stuffing

Today for Slow Cooker Sunday, I made this chicken and stuffing recipe. I think it was pretty good! Here's mine:



We had it with asparagus (Gary ate that...not me), cranberry sauce, and salad.

I love relaxing Sunday suppers at home!

(Now I guess there's some football game on. Looks like kind of a big deal...)

playing house

This past week we got some painting done. We painted the master bedroom (and by "We," I mean our friend Joe who has a painting business), master bathroom, Ben's room, and Ben's bathroom.

The paint in the master bathroom goes along with the new bed set we recently got:



We made the color in the master bathroom a little lighter because we have dark wood floors in there, and we didn't want it to look too dark:



We painted Ben's room the same brown as our room. Since there are lots of browns and greens in the bed set we registered for, we did the green stripe on top of the brown. Here's his bed and rocker. The animals in the rocker were mine growing up :)



This one doesn't really show paint color, but I like it anyway :). Ben's books.



When Gary and I were dating, we discovered that we both had this toy set growing up. They're a little family of squeaking squirrels. Their new home is on Ben's dresser.



And Ben's room looking out into the hall



And...

Since we turned the guest room into Ben's room, we were in need of another place for guests to stay. That was a great excuse to go furniture shopping today! We store hopped for five hours before settling on this sleeper sofa and accent chair from Haverty's. They will go in the room formerly known as the office, which is now being turned into the man cave/guest room.

What are you reading?

I love the library. And not just cause my mama works there.

One of my college professors told us that there are two things that the USA has that many foreigners think are wonderful: 1) Grocery stores - one location where you can get all the food you need, and 2) Libraries - Where you can borrow books for FREE.

Here's what I recently checked out:

1:

I got "Pregnancy for Dummies" because...well...one can never be too prepared for the whole giving birth thing. Not to mention all of the info about the nine months leading up to the blessed event. This has been a good reference tool and something to help me realize "I'm not the only freak who this crazy stuff happens to."

2:

When I met one of my favorite authors, Mary Kay Andrews, at the Decatur Book Festival, I learned that she used to write under the name Kathy Hogan Trocheck. I finally got around to finding some of those books and can now reserve, check out, and read these "new to me" ones. "Happily Never After was about a woman who piddles in private investigating who is hired to help find someone's long-lost-sister and ends up solving a murder along the way.

3:

Another pregnancy book, but this one was fiction. I just finished it today. It was about a Chicago girl who became pregnant by her live-in boyfriend, and all of her GROWING - both physical and emotionally - that she did as a result. For the record, I am NOT a crier, but I found m'self getting a little misty-eyed when her baby was born. Must be my own pregnancy horomones working their magic there. Or I had a speck of dust in my eye. Yeah...that must be it.

4.

This looked like an interesting read, but I don't know if I'll make it all the way through it or not. I'm not one for reading research for pleasure, but I am interested in the evolution of Christianity, how it's viewed in the South, and how others perceive it.

5.

My sixth graders and I are currently learning about Latin America. One of the lesson plans I came across mentioed this children's book. It's about a Siamese Cat who imagines that he's a chihuahua on an adventure in Mexico. It was a cute read-aloud; the kids really liked it. They didn't seem to think I butchered the words en espanol too badly, which was a plus :)

So that's what I'm reading. What about you?

Look what the mailman brought today!

Happy year and a half anniversary to us!

Yesterday marked our year and a half anniversary! Honestly, I didn't remember it until Gary came home from work with flowers in tow :). This month he got me tulips and roses. So pretty! We have to keep the tulips out of the cats' reach; we learned a while back that they like to chew on them - just tulips, though. Nothing else.

I love getting flowers each month on the 20th. They help brighten our house up each month!

Slow Cooker Sunday - Potato Soup

Today for Slow Cooker Sunday, I decided to try to make cheesy potato soup. I love the potato soup at O'Charley's, and it was a cold rainy day, so it seemed perfect.

It turned out quite tasty and filling, and we have plenty leftover to have it again tomorrow on our day off. Here is the recipe.

And here is what it looked like -