This morning I woke up and, to my amazement, when I went outside it was in the low seventies. We haven’t been that cool in a long time, and it was so nice I don’t want it to heat up again. The cooler weather made our trip to town to take our new puppies to the vet and to pick up some groceries much nicer.

What’s the plan for the rest of the day? Getting that mound of mending that has been piling up under control, and the piles of stuff in my room put away. I know that all of you always have clean rooms and stay ahead of your work, but I am still working on it :)

What is going on in your lives? Sorry that I haven’t been by your blogs, I really have missed it but I have been so busy with life right now. I will stop by and ‘visit’ with you all soon.

I’m sorry that I haven’t posted in a couple days, but things have been very busy. Before I introduce you to our newest farm animals I will give you an update on my mom. Mom is doing well; she isn’t having any pain, which is good. She doesn’t have a lot of stamina right now, but that is normal.

On Thursday, our family took a trip our local animal shelter and got our two newest members of the farm. Please welcome our two Siberian husky/terrier puppies - Wallace and Knight. (Wallace has the white streak and Knight has the black face)



Wallace is sweet and cuddly.



Knight is energetic and loves to fetch balls.




P.S. Sorry that I didn't make it clear that Mom only spent one night in the hospital.

Every once in a while, I am thankful for the things that force me to take a break from all things I do. Every once in a while, I enjoy spending the entire day doing nothing but watching movies and playing computer games. The past two days have been like that, and today I’m getting back to my normal life. My poor sister Rose has been doing all the house work, because I was so tired after spending the night with my mom at the hospital, so today I will be doing all the kitchen so she can take a break.

It’s funny, most people talk about the vices and dangers of doing nothing, but I think that there is a lot to be said for taking some time out of your life to relax. Sometimes, especially during a hectic time in your life, taking a day to do nothing is the best medicine. With that said, I need to get back to my work and list of things to do today. See you tomorrow!

Good morning everyone, and thank you for your prayers. Mom’s surgery went well and she is now slowly healing from the surgery. I’m sorry I didn’t post sooner, I am just very tired. Please continue to pray for Mom's complete and speedy recovery. Oh, and thank you once again for your prayers and notes of encouragement.

Mom’s surgery is scheduled for 1:30 this afternoon. Please pray!

Thank you all for your prayers for my mom and I ask you to continue praying. The test showed that her gull bladder is full of stones and will have to be removed. She is going into the doctor today to schedule the surgery. As you might have guessed, this means that things around our house will be crazy so I will probably not be posting regularly.

I would also like to request prayer for me to pass my driver’s test tomorrow. My family could really use another driver especially now that my mom is going to be out of commission for a while. I am very nervous about not passing.

Thank you for your prayers.

I can just see some of your faces when you read that title, but before you leave, just let me say it looks a little funny to me too. My family has never really been a fan of Hannah Montana, but when we saw an ad for this movie we all wanted to see it. It looked so funny, and yesterday we really needed something light-hearted to watch.

The basic premise is that Miley/Hannah is getting a little too full of herself, so her dad takes her back home to Tennessee for two weeks to get away from being Hannah Montana. Miley is not happy about this, but by the end of the movie she has seen how her double life has hurt some of the people she loves the most.

There were some really funny scenes about farm life, making this really fun for me and my country family. There was no crude humor (that I can think of), only one bad word in the whole thing (and it was mild), and the guy girl stuff was very clean. It really reminded me of what Disney used to be - clean and fun with sometimes a little bit of romance. I would recommend this for the entire family, even if you, like us, are not Hannah Montana fans.

My dear sisters in Christ, please pray for my mom, she is in a lot of pain from a stomach ulcer. She is going to the doctor today to have some tests done and could use some prayer. As I am sure all of you know, it can make you a little nervous to do medical tests.

As for what else is going on in my world, I am still trying to catch up with all the things I need to get done. I am behind in my writing, sewing, cleaning and reading. There just don’t seem to be enough hours in my day to do everything that need doing. Speaking of that, I better get going.

I don’t feel like posting even when I need to. We had a busy yet blessed Sunday with friends, and now I am really tired, so this will not be a very long post.

I did want to tell all of you that I am sorry that I haven’t been commenting on your blogs much lately. I have been very busy with a lot of different things and trying to catch up on something I have let slide, and commenting on blogs is one of the things that has suffered. I hope to have everything in hand soon, so that I can get back to reading your blogs.

Well that’s about all I have to say for now. Have a great day!

One of the things that about writing Si-Fi, Fantasy, or books set in nonexistent countries is that you have to create a culture to go with it. But how do you create a nonexistent culture? What is it that makes a people group different from another?

These are the questions that I have been asking myself as I have been writing a Si-Fi book and getting ready to start a series set in a fictional country. I don’t have all the answers but here are some of the things that I have learned so far.

1. It is really good to read books by authors that have done a good job with creating nonexistent cultures. It’s a good way to get ideas. Although I don’t really like fantasy, C. S. Lewis is very good at creating nonexistent cultures. The two books of his that you can see this best in are The Horse and His Boy and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Do you know of any other authors that have done a good job creating nonexistent cultures?

2. One of the things that I have found to be key to creating nonexistent cultures, is to have some very different traditions and sayings. For instance they might have a saying like ‘He is stronger than Sir Early’ after some person in their history. Another example is perhaps it is a tradition for them not to cross a bridge after sunset on Saturday. Little bits like this go a long way to creating a nonexistent culture.

3. When creating a nonexistent culture, try to have something they are known for, such as apples, fine woodworking, friendly people, and things like that.

I hope this was helpful. Do you have any tips on creating nonexistent cultures?

Here is a story I wrote for Writing on the Weekends.

They had been riding for what seemed like forever. What had been their former home, Tranquility Castle, lay behind them in the mountains, and before them lay danger of the unknown.

Christopher led his sisters toward the one place he was sure they could get away from the whoever it was who was after them, but it was also one of the most dangerous places he could go - the Enchanted Forest. He hesitated only a moment to enter the dreaded place, but when he saw his sisters' faces he knew that he had to risk it and plunged in.

********

Lost. Christopher knew that they were wandering around and not getting anywhere. To make matters even worse, a storm was coming in, and it looked like it was going to be a bad one. He had thought that he could find the old road used by traders sometimes and get to a friend’s castle, but all he had done was get them lost.

Suddenly, Christopher turned back at a strange sound and realized that they were being followed. How had someone tracked them all the way out here?

“Quick!” He called to his sisters. “Follow me!” With that he dug his knees into his horse. They were quickly galloping through the woods. Ducking under branches and maneuvering around trees.

He looked back and saw three men on horseback in the uniform of Tranquility Castle not far behind them; he knew it would not be long before they caught up with them.

“God, please help us,” Christopher prayed. Suddenly, out of the trees a woman stepped out holding a long bow. As Christopher looked back to see what was going on, he saw the woman take aim and shoot her arrow at one of their pursuers. What was going on? Who was the woman?

First off, my family believes that the most important thing in this world is relationships and people. The only two things that we will be able to take to heaven are our relationships with God and others. For the past two or three years, we have been frustrated because we do a very limited amount of things outside the home so that we have time for people, especially in the church; but they had a lot going, so we just didn’t seem to be making relationships there.

Don’t get me wrong, it was a great church with good teaching and great people, we just had to start rethinking what was important in a church, and it got us to thinking about what church really is. God began to work in our life in an amazing way. He had to get us into a place where we were uncomfortable, discontent and willing to change our thinking in order for us not to cling to what we had known.

As for how we spend our time on Sunday, in September, we will be starting a gathering (or fellowship) every evening to get with other believers. We also are spending more time with the people that God has placed in our life, even if they are not our favorite people.

As for verses that we used, we read almost the entire book of Acts and the New Testament, and it is full of references to the early church meeting in homes and fellowshipping together.

I have talked a lot in the past few weeks about the journey that our family is on, as well as the book that started us on it “So You Don’t Want to go to Church Any More?” by Wayne Jacobson. Several people have expressed concern over his book and the man himself that I felt I ought to address.

First of all, I want to make it very clear that I and my family are not following Wayne Jacobson, we are following what God has called us to do. We had been struggling with a lot of questions about church and the Christian life in general, and Mr. Jacobson pointed us in the right direction. There are several things he said that we checked against scripture to make sure that what he was saying was true, and there are still no things that he has said that we don’t agree with. We know that he is human and has mistakes, but he has reminded us of what we are supposed to be doing as Christians.

If you have questions about the journey that we are going on, I would love to answer them. If I get enough of them I will make a whole post out of the answers on Monday.
Note; I do not mind if you disagree with me, you are still welcome to leave questions. If you don’t want me to publish your comment but want me to answer a question, just say as much in your comment.

I sold my first item on Etsy yesterday! I am so excited that I finally sold something and hope that now I can keep selling at least one small item a month. I am also going to start doing some E-Bay auctions starting today or tomorrow.

Do any of you have a little business of any kind?

P.S. Sorry that this has been such a short post, I am just really tired today.

One of the things that we have really been learning on this journey that God has set us on is that we haven’t been loving the people God has placed in our path like we should. There are so many people around us that we have sort of looked down on because they didn’t do what we ‘knew’ they should do, or we wished they wouldn’t always come to us with their problems. However, this book has set us on the path to loving everyone that comes our way with a true biblical love from the inside out, not just on the outside.

I don’t know about you, but I have really struggled with loving people from my heart. Oh, I can pretend with the best of them that I love them, and I’m having a good time, but we should love everyone of the people that walk in our life like Christ would. From our friends at church, to that young girl that walked in even though she is wearing immodest clothing and flirting with the boys. We are to love our brothers and sisters and the girl who is doing community service.

I have only just begun on this journey to truly loving others as Christ would love them, but I would love it if you joined me.

Good morning all, I hope that you all are doing well. Yesterday was a hard day for us all. Our dog Abby died yesterday morning, and that made us all very sad. She had been such a good dog for the past seven years. We are all doing better today and are now trying to decide what kind of dog we want to get next.

On a brighter note, our family had one of the most peaceful relaxing Sundays that we have had in years. We stayed home and spent the whole day together playing board games, talking, eating and Bible study. It was so nice not to have to get up and rush around to get ready for a church service. It was a nice day of rest.

I was given a few awards awhile back, but I forgot to post them, so here we go.
Thank you Arianna for the following awards;



The fabulous blog award I would like to give to Jessica, Alex, and Amber.



I would like to give the lemonade award to Rose, Miss Serenity, Shannon.



One Lovely blog award (this was given to me by Allison), I would like to give to, Haley, Chelsea, and

Last but not least I would like to award the Godly blog award to Elizabeth J. , Ruby Jeweled, and Allison.

I have been featured on Virtuous Girlhood.

May you all have a great day!