Hyppychick

Day 19 - Humility

2013-05-19T07:00:00.000-04:00

I was inspired during this series by the posts at Keeping It Personal…

Day 18 - Perserverance

2013-05-18T07:00:00.000-04:00

I was inspired during this series by the posts at Keeping It Personal…

Day 17 - Joy

2013-05-17T07:00:00.000-04:00

I was inspired during this series by the posts at Keeping It Personal…

Day 16 - Peace Loving

2013-05-16T07:00:00.001-04:00

I was inspired during this series by the posts at Keeping It Personal…

Day 15 – Generosity

2013-05-15T07:00:00.000-04:00

I was inspired during this series by the posts at Keeping It Personal…

Day 14 - Kindness

2013-05-14T07:04:00.000-04:00

I was inspired during this series by the posts at Keeping It Personal…

Day 13 -Purity

2013-05-13T07:02:00.000-04:00

I was inspired during this series by the posts at Keeping It Personal…

Day 12 - Courage

2013-05-12T09:01:00.000-04:00

I was inspired during this series by the posts at Keeping It Personal…

Day 11 - Faithfulness

2013-05-11T11:39:00.000-04:00

I was inspired during this series by the posts at Keeping It Personal…

Day 10 – Biblical Self-Esteem

2013-05-10T11:00:00.000-04:00

I was inspired during this series by the posts at Keeping It Personal…

Day 9 - Respect

2013-05-09T10:44:00.000-04:00

Day 8 - Mercy

2013-05-08T06:30:00.000-04:00

Day 7 - Justice

2013-05-07T07:00:00.000-04:00

Virtue #6 - Love for God's Word

2013-05-06T08:49:00.000-04:00

http://keepingitpersonal.com/2012/03/love-for-gods-word/

Virtue #5 - Self Control

2013-05-05T08:48:00.002-04:00

Virtue #4 - Honesty and Integrity

2013-05-04T08:46:00.000-04:00

Virtue for your kids: Day 3 ~ LOVE

2013-05-03T07:00:00.000-04:00

Virtue #2 for my Kids: Grow in Grace

2013-05-02T07:00:00.000-04:00

Lord, please allow my children to understand your free and unmerited favor or what we call grace. Please help them to understand that we are saved by GRACE ALONE. Not because we wore the right jeans or a certain person liked us. Not because we gave the biggest offering at church or worked more hours than anyone else on the mission trip.

Help me, o Lord, to help them understand your Grace through their experiences, Your Word, and worship. Help me to show them grace – to extend it to them every day and in every way. And help me to grow in grace too.

31 Biblical Virtues to Pray for Your Children: Day 1

2013-05-01T09:00:00.000-04:00

I found this little infographic on Pinterest about 31 virtues to pray for my kids. I am always looking for ways to structure my prayer time and I thought this would be very appropriate.

First day is SALVATION

I pray that my children will find the peace that SALVATION will give them. I pray that I can help them to get through all the religious BS and find Jesus. I want them to know that God isn’t mad at them and only wants to love them.

A definite direction

2013-04-30T10:38:00.001-04:00

For too long, I have let this blog drift without any real plans. I didn’t want to nail down a niche and I wanted it to be broad so that I could write what I wanted. But what I’ve found is that without direction, I went everywhere and nowhere.

No more.

I’m narrowing my focus and you’re going to start seeing at least 2 or 3 posts a week here. I don’t promise they will be long, but there will be SOMETHING to read or see.

Here are the things I am focusing on:

Homeschooling (choices, how-tos)
Being Mama (homemaking, parenting)
Creativity (fun and fancy)

You may also see the occasional rant but it will be rare – hopefully!

I’m going to be doing a Flylady challenge on my Tumblr blog and there may be some cross posting. That blog is largely for my own entertainment and posting eclectic silly things that make me laugh or think but I love comments and sharing.

I’m also doing a series here starting tomorrow about praying for your kids.

I hope you’ll hang out with me and see where it goes…

What I’ve learned about homeschooling so far…

2013-04-05T10:37:00.000-04:00

Now that I can really see the light at the end of our first year homeschooling, I can step back and start looking back at how things are going.

There is no perfect box curriculum

First thing I've learned is that there is no perfect box curriculum. Furthermore, you aren't going to be 100% satisfied with anything unless you piece it together yourself and even then there will be something you're not happy with. You need to find something that is close enough to what you want so that you don't hate it.

Stop looking for perfection

Point 2: you can't study any of them enough to find all their faults and omissions before you invest your time, energy or money. So you need to be prepared to supplement where necessary and accept the curriculum warts and all. If it really stinks, stop using it and find something else. Part B of this is that you shouldn't assume that one grade is representative of all the grades. Anyone who tells you different is selling you something. I saw the 3rd grade level of my curriculum and was told that the preschool level was similar. It is NOTHING like the third grade level. The only similarity is the teaching guide.

Say NO to over-scheduling

Thirdly, don't over schedule yourself. I've been guilty of this so many times this year. Between all of the things that I want to work on for my own improvement, housekeeping, volunteering for church and community, and homeschooling, there just hasn't been a whole lot of downtime. This summer, I want to put P into swimming lessons and into Girl Scouts in the fall so I’m starting to think ahead now about what our commitments are and what they will be once school starts. I’ve had to say “no” to quite a few things – including things I really wanted to say “yes” to - because I know that I just won’t have the time I need to do them well come August.

Planning will save your Sanity

Fourth, plan. I mean it. Really plan. Sit down right now and start planning next year. I know it’s April and there’s still another 8 weeks or so before most folks consider their school year done but I am serious. If I could do this year over again, I would have started 2 years in advance and planned, planned, planned. I have a written lesson plan provided with my curriculum and IT IS NOT ENOUGH. I have to read ahead, make notes, acquire materials, fill in gaps, etc. I feel like I am always flying by the seat of my pants trying to keep up. We’re switching curriculum companies next year (more about that in another post) and I can’t get the materials until July. I AM FREAKING OUT. Fortunately, they have an excellent syllabus online so I can start thinking ahead.

Plan for your younger children too

On level with the 4th lesson is number FIVE: PLAN FOR THE LITTLE GUY TOO. My son is two years old and he wants to color and draw and listen to stories and work on the computer with sister. I’ve had to make copies, print multiples, make sure I’ve had enough material all year long. This year, I’m going to put together a little curriculum that he can work on while sister does stuff like math and worksheets. He can listen to stories and color and draw and work on the computer too (but with a different computer and program) but then I’ll make some easier version of stuff for him.

Get yourself organized NOW

SIX: ORGANIZE. EVERYTHING. Your time, your resources, your home. I’ve had to dig all year. I’m finally starting to workout exactly where stuff needs to live and how best to access it. At the beginning of the year, I put all of the pre-K stuff in one file cabinet drawer. Now I’ve purchased another file cabinet, cleared off a bookshelf, and decluttered even more. I’ll have to write a post on this too.

If you’re homeschooling, could you share your most important lessons with me? I’m more than glad to hear them.

Giving your worries to God

2013-03-19T17:33:00.001-04:00

Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you. 1 Peter 5:7

I am a worrier. Peter was a worrier too. And yet, he learned to give the Lord his worries.
I like to massage and worry over a problem until I see a solution or I'm inspired to ask someone their opinion. Lately, I've been obsessing over the fact that we have now been a one car household for 4-1/2 years and it's really starting to wear me down. And yet, if I mention to someone that I'm looking for a car, they come up with someone selling - generally one that I'm going to worry about because it's 15 years old or needs shocks and goodness knows how much that's gonna cost.
I know what I want. I also know that we can't deal with another car payment to get it. So this leads me to another phrase that someone just taught me.

"If it's God's will, then it's God's bill."

I'm handing the whole thing over to Him.

The Bible Series and my thoughts on some passages

2013-03-04T09:41:00.001-05:00

I watched the first episode of the Bible series on History channel last night and I thought it was really good. Yes, there were HUGE jumps from the near sacrifice of Isaac to the Exodus. Yes, they left out Joseph (and his coat of many colors) but I wasn't that disturbed. This is a movie and like any movie based on a book, they are gonna leave out something - probably one of your favorite parts. With only about an hour and 45 minutes (not two hours cuz of commercials), they have to move quickly if they want to get to revelation by the end of the 5th and final episode.
I've seen a couple of complaints this morning about the ninja angels getting Lot and his family out of Sodom. I have two things that come to mind. First, the Bible says:

When Lot still hesitated, the angels seized his hand and the hands of his wife and two daughters and rushed them to safety outside the city, for the Lord was merciful. Genesis 19:16

Well how would you think that looked? If you've got gangs of men roaming around who want to beat up and molest the angels, how do you think they got out? Secondly, this is television in 2013 and Charleton Heston is nowhere in sight. If they had calmly walked out, it wouldn't have been very interesting or dramatic. Our entertainment these days has dramatic fighting and action and to do any less would have been boring for us in the 21st century and certainly boring for the unsaved and unchurched who watch stuff like that.
For those familiar with the stories, use the series as a launching pad to delve deeper into the scriptures. Read the parts not mentioned. Read about Jacob and Leah and Rachel. Read about Joseph and why he brought his family out of Canaan and into Egypt. And stop nitpicking.

MY SOAP Study today

SCRIPTURE

Romans 5:12-21 (MSG) Paul's thoughts on the contrast between Jesus and Adam

12-14 You know the story of how Adam landed us in the dilemma we’re in—first sin, then death, and no one exempt from either sin or death. That sin disturbed relations with God in everything and everyone, but the extent of the disturbance was not clear until God spelled it out in detail to Moses. So death, this huge abyss separating us from God, dominated the landscape from Adam to Moses. Even those who didn’t sin precisely as Adam did by disobeying a specific command of God still had to experience this termination of life, this separation from God. But Adam, who got us into this, also points ahead to the One who will get us out of it. Yet the rescuing gift is not exactly parallel to the death-dealing sin. If one man’s sin put crowds of people at the dead-end abyss of separation from God, just think what God’s gift poured through one man, Jesus Christ, will do! There’s no comparison between that death-dealing sin and this generous, life-giving gift. The verdict on that one sin was the death sentence; the verdict on the many sins that followed was this wonderful life sentence. If death got the upper hand through one man’s wrongdoing, can you imagine the breathtaking recovery life makes, sovereign life, in those who grasp with both hands this wildly extravagant life-gift, this grand setting-everything-right, that the one man Jesus Christ provides? 18-19 Here it is in a nutshell: Just as one person did it wrong and got us in all this trouble with sin and death, another person did it right and got us out of it. But more than just getting us out of trouble, he got us into life! One man said no to God and put many people in the wrong; one man said yes to God and put many in the right. 20-21 All that passing laws against sin did was produce more lawbreakers. But sin didn't and doesn't have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it’s sin versus grace, grace wins hands down. All sin can do is threaten us with death, and that’s the end of it. Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah, invites us into life—a life that goes on and on and on, world without end.

OBSERVATION

A few weeks ago, my church did a series about the Tabernacle and how it was God's way of drawing close to us. Also too, we were given laws - many many laws - that we were to follow to be worthy to be in God's presence. The whole point was that there were so many laws, so many ways that we could not possibly make ourselves holy enough to be with God that sacrifices had to be made to cleanse the sins. It was a great series because I'd never really understood why the blood sacrifices were necessary or why we didn't still do sacrifices.

APPLICATION

This passage makes me think of all the ways that God has tried to draw close to me. It's also reminding me that you can always turn around a wrong situation. If God can do it for mankind, then I can do it with whatever is bogging me down.

PRAYER

Thank you Father for making a way. Thank you for giving us your Son to cleanse the sins so that we might be close to you again.

How to Study Your Bible

2013-03-03T07:56:00.000-05:00

I have read dozens of books about how to best study the Bible. I've asked pastors. I've watched countless YouTube videos. What I have found that really works for me is SOAP.
SOAP is an acronym that stands for SCRIPTURE, OBSERVATION, APPLICATION, and PRAYER.
Scripture refers to reading the verse as it is.
Observation refers what your thoughts and feelings are about the verse.
Application is how you can use this information in your everyday life or in a situation.
Prayer is actually writing out a prayer that uses this information. Many of my prayers are simply "Thank you Lord for showing me this verse"
What methods do you use to study the Bible?

Do you think God gets sad?

2013-03-01T12:30:00.003-05:00