Preparing for a Future Valentine

Today I would love to invite you to try your hand at using a crock-pot or slow cooker. The recipes for today are chicken meals. I have compiled 5 recipes for you, and hope that you enjoy them. 1. Fiesta Chicken  This recipe comes from The Saturday Evening Pot , a blog written by a professional chef, a married man with 2 kids.   2. Orange Chicken This recipe comes from the blog  Six Sister's Stuff written by 6 married sisters, who love to cook, craft, and more! 3. Italian Chicken Sorry, I don't have a picture for this one. :( This comes from Money Saving Mom , which is a wonderful blog that I have referenced before. She has wonderful deals, thoughts, articles, and more! This recipe has 2 ingredients!  4. Sweet Coke Pulled Chicken This recipe comes from Living Life of Riley written by a frugal stay-at-home mom with 1 son. She blogs about family, food, faith, and couponing.  5. Chicken Parmesan This recipe is also from Six Sister's Stuff.

For my first post with the new blog vision, I want to point you to a wonderful article that I found written by Erika Shupe. Erika is a home-schooled, christian wife, and mother of 9 children. She has a wonderful blog Large Families on Purpose . The article I found on her site was about how sharing rooms produces good character in multiple different ways. So today, please take the time to look at her post. Siblings Sharing Bedrooms: "You have *how* many per room?!" Above is a picture of the Shupe family, a family with 3 bedrooms. Parents room, boys room, and girls room. Erika says "First of all, "  Erika says, " sharing bedrooms is very practical with the amount of space the average family has in their home.  Most people have between 2-4 bedrooms in their house.  It makes the most sense for children to be able to share bedrooms.  Especially when the Lord desires, deserves, and expects lordship in our lives in the area of family planning, this ofte

As it is Sunday, I know that I would normally post the next post in my series Command Man, Steady Man, or Visionary? But I have been looking through scripture and praying, and taking with some wise counselors, and have decided to make a bit of a change in how I go about blogging. So I am going to be taking a break today from my regular series instead to let you know that a change is coming to the blog. It may take me a few days to post, as the new changes take some work and preparation. I will be continuing the usual Sunday series, starting again next Sunday, but it will look a little different. My changes are coming about from a bit of scripture that has convicted me. Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be r

So I am not a person who puts a lot of emphasis or importance on physical exercise, but I do believe that for some reasons it is important. As I am preparing for a future valentine, I would really like to be in the type of shape that will be pleasing to my husband both in and out of the bedroom. I also know from personal experience that being in shape is really helpful when you have many small children, and want to keep up with them. I do not believe that being really skinny is something to chase after, however, as it can cause multiple problems when the time comes that you might get pregnant. The more skinny you are, the harder you are going to have to work to feed a baby growing inside you. But having too much extra fat will make you tired and wore out during pregnancy. So a happy medium is nice. And that happy medium is going to be different for women of different shapes, sizes, and builds. I just wanted to share with you my newest favorite way of exercising. Often times I set

So 8 weeks ago I looked at the way I was using Pinterest and wasn't happy with what I saw. In one place online(my blog) I was encouraging my fellow women to spend their days preparing for their future marriage, motherhood, and homemaking, and on the other place online(pinterest) I was spending my days pinning funny quotes, pictures from media I enjoyed, and things I simply found interesting. This showed in the amount of pins I had in each board. Funny Stuff-168 Things to Try-63 Food-59 For the Home-54 My Style-40 pins My someday book lover wedding-37 Wish List-37 Quotes-32 Wonderful-29 Done this-19 Articles-18 Books worth reading-11 Books to read in 2013-7 Favorite thing to do-6 Clothing-5 Wedding Ideas-5 Things for the future-3 Children's busy ideas-1 Homeschooling-1 I realized that if pinterest were to match that which I was encouraging other women to do, that the boards with the most pins would have been homeschooling, food, children's busy ideas,

Life is crazy. It can be crazy beyond belief, and often times we get so caught up in simply keeping up that we miss out on key opportunities to appreciate God's glory. I think my life is crazy, and I don't even have a husband, any children, or a household to take care of. Not to mention I also have only a part time job, and a very small amount of schooling. Hour wise I have a 20 to 24 hour work week, about 3 hours tops of tutoring a week, 6 hours of drama a week, and 3 hours of church activities tops. Other responsibilities include reading two books a month, taking care of the entire kitchen at home minus the grocery shopping, with a sister helping, being an accountability partner, and blogging. And yet I think I'm busy. :) So I often find myself busy, and rarely find myself bored. So though I fit some bible reading or something similar into my schedule daily, I often miss out on those opportunities to simply commune with God. But sometimes I actually am in tune enough

I apologize for the lack of a post last Sunday. It really isn't fun when I don't have time to post, and then have to skip a week of a series. But today is going to great! Today is about the third type of man, a Visionary. The Visionary or Prophet reflects the character of God the Holy Spirit. They are shakers, changers, and dreamers. Hence the term Visionary, as they see what can be or should be and seek to change things. They are the men who keep the rest of the world from getting stagnant or dull. Some Visionaries can become fanatically focused on certain issues, such as whether or not we should celebrate Christmas, or the horrors of birth control. While others are simply passionate about all they speak of. Visionaries rarely keep at one job at a time. They tend to go with the vision that they most recently have acquired, and need to be supported in this. They are incredibly romantic and passionate, and those married to them will never be bored. My father is a Visionar

 As I only have a few minutes today with which to share with you, I would like to just recommend a blog I follow. The writer of this blog is the young mother of two little girls, with a third child very soon to come. Almost all of her posts are filled with pictures. Some of her adorable little girls, her latest craft project, her husband, or all of the above. So if you have the time today, check out my friend's blog.  My Blissful Chaos You will find lots of great crafts, recipes, recommendations on child rearing, and sometimes just a good laugh or warm heart over the lovely antics of her daughters. I have known the writer since Christmas of 2006, and consider myself very blessed to have her as a friend. I have watched her since we were in drama together, as she fell in love, got married, had children, and ran a home of her own. She has also helped me run a baby shower, and is a wonderful hostess. I guarantee you will love her decoration ideas, as they are both simple and simply

Considering the fact that the title of my blog is Preparing for a Future Valentine , it's probably not ok to ignore the fact that it's Valentine's Day. I am not in any kind of relationship this year, just as I have never been in one in the past, so my Valentine's day will look a little different than a lot of woman's this year. If you have read my About Me  section, you'll know that a year ago, I hated Valentine's day. To me it was single awareness day. And this year is no different in that it is again difficult. This year is my elder sister's first year with a valentine, and it is also my first Valentine's day as a legal woman. But something completely different has happened since last year, and because of that I intend to have a lovely Valentine's Day even without a relationship. Or rather I will have a day filled with a relationship far greater than any I could ever have with any human man. Jesus is my focus this Valentine's, and in h

Once again, it is Wednesday. Kind of crazy how fast the week goes by! I don't think I pinned too much this week, but I could be wrong. Now we get to find out. :) 7 weeks ago this is what my boards looked like: Funny Stuff-168 Things to Try-63 Food-59 For the Home-54 My Style-40 pins My someday book lover wedding-37 Wish List-37 Quotes-32 Wonderful-29 Done this-19 Articles-18 Books worth reading-11 Books to read in 2013-7 Favorite thing to do-6 Clothing-5 Wedding Ideas-5 Things for the future-3 Children's busy ideas-1 Homeschooling-1 Now they look a little different. The new and approved list is as follows: Funny Stuff-171 Things to Try-71 Food-93 For the Home-57 My Style-40 pins My someday book lover wedding-37 Wish List-49 Quotes-32 Wonderful-32 Done this-30 Articles-52 Books worth reading-12 Books to read in 2013-23 Favorite thing to do-6 Clothing-5 Wedding Ideas-5 Things for the future-30 Children's busy ideas-26 Homeschooling-2

Imagine if you will you are the mother of small children, and you want to spend your day hammering on the laundry, or doing some freezer cooking. Unfortunately, you have three children ages ranging from 2 to 6, and you have to find some way to keep them occupied while you work around the house. As they are still small, their attention spans are quite small, but you'd really rather not just stick them in front of a TV. Or maybe you are the mother of multiple children, some small, and some older, and when school time rolls around you are presented with a problem. How do you teach those older children, and yet have some way to keep those little ones occupied in a way that they aren't getting into trouble? The answer? Stations! This is a method my family has used since I was young. Stations are for your younger kids, while you are busy with the house or with the older children. I remember being the one doing the stations, the one setting up the stations for the small ones, and

If you read my earlier post: Many Hands Make Light Work , I told you a little bit about some of my siblings. In there I gave pet names to my 3-year-old twin sisters. As those two gals are the protagonists of the story about to unfold, I will once again tell you a little bit about them. Chatty is two minutes older then her twin, and is a quite spunky little girl. She loves to talk to all that are willing to listen, and her stories can be difficult to stop once they get started. Drama is also fond of chatting, but is better known for her very dramatic nature. Many times when told no, she will place the back of her hand across her eyes and weep bitterly as if her long lost love has come to an untimely demise. When in truth, she is merely upset over an unwanted nap. It was yesterday morning that I realized yet another great difference in between these darling personalities. One of my twin sisters is a morning bird, and the other an obvious night owl.  I was in the bathroom around 7 i

For those of you who don't know this about me yet, I should tell you that I am an insane Shakespeare nut. I love all of his writings whether plays, sonnets, or poems. My favorite of his plays is the comedy "Much Ado About Nothing," which tells of the constant duel between Benedick and Beatrice and of the undying love of Claudio and Hero. But the bit of Shakespeare I want to share with you today is from his play "Taming of the Shrew." Taming of the Shrew tells the story of a shrew by the name of Katherine, or Kate, who is an absolute pain to her father, her sister, and her community. Her younger sister is fair and virtuous, and sought after by many young men, but not allowed to marry until the elder shrew is out of the nest. Finally there comes a day where a man by the name of Petruchio comes to the town of Padua, and upon meeting Kate decides to wed her. The entirety of the rest of the play is spent with Petruchio working to tame his wife, the shrew. At the

As Wednesday is quickly drawing to a close, it is once again time to write about my successes and adventures on Pinterest. I started this series 6 weeks ago now. Wow, how time flies! When I started my list of amounts of pins on my boards from greatest to least was as follows : Funny Stuff-168 Things to Try-63 Food-59 For the Home-54 My Style-40 pins My someday book lover wedding-37 Wish List-37 Quotes-32 Wonderful-29 Done this-19 Articles-18 Books worth reading-11 Books to read in 2013-7 Favorite thing to do-6 Clothing-5 Wedding Ideas-5 Things for the future-3 Children's busy ideas-1 Homeschooling-1 But then I changed my outlook and what I spent my time on Pinterest doing, and have since chosen certain boards that I feel are much more useful and needed for my future than the other boards. Those needed boards include: food, things for the future, home care and hygiene, children's busy ideas, homeschooling, done this, and possibly for the home. Now my list

As it is Sunday, I will continue in my series on the different characteristics and personalities of men. Last week we looked a little farther into the character of a Command Man or King, whom reflects the character of God the Father. Today I would like to move on to the Steady Man, or Priest. The Steady Man reflect the character of God the Son. The Steady Man is the most steady of the types, hence the name. He will be easy going and not given to extremes. He tends not to make snap decisions, and not to spend his money or time on a new idea. He also hates confrontation, and is thus not the kind to tell others what to do. Debi Pearl says that the Steady Man isn't the one who invents the light-bulb, but he will be the one to build the factory and manage the assembly line that produces the light bulb. The Steady Man sticks with the same thing for many years. They often are in the same job for many many years, and are content with the wife of their youth. They are content to stay a