Amy J. Bennett

Extraordinary Faith for Everyday Life

Not a great day

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This afternoon particularly was rough for me.  There’s been another meeting scheduled with our youth council for this Friday and I started completely stressing about it.  By the time Scott got home right before 5, he found me in a pool of tears on our bed.  Not a great welcoming back home.  But I say that to say this.  God answers prayers.  I’ve been so hopeless with our situation and all of the leaders being able to get along and I just have been begging God to show us the right thing to do.  I don’t know if I have my permanent answer but for today, right now, a weight was lifted off.  I don’t feel the anger, stress and worry that I felt this afternoon and it is many thanks to our pastor that showed this video during his guest-speaking sermon tonight in youth group.  But more than that, many thanks to God for giving me what I needed when I needed it.  I have no idea what Friday will bring but at least I’m going into it with the proper attitude.

If you know anything about Contemporary Christian music in the past 15 years or so, I’m sure you’ve heard of dc Talk or Toby Mac.  This video features dc Talk members Michael and Toby talking about their friendship.  It spoke volumes to me about our youth council and that there’s hope.

The video is kinda long at 10 minutes so if you don’t want to watch it, the best part is the last minute or two of Toby talking.

P.S. Kevin and Toby are still HOT!

 

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Business Christmas cards

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Is your son or daughter creative and in need of some college scholarships soon? Yeah, I’ve got two girls to hopefully put through college one day and I’d consider them creative. That’s why I wish my girls were old enough to enter this greeting cards scholarship contest. $10,000 would put a nice little dent in tuition costs and if you happen to have a son or daughter 14 years old or older, this seems like a no-brainer to enter. I think this is great since so many scholarships are based on academics, this gives your children to express their creative side in order to earn some money.

This company’s main objective is to sell business Christmas cards so keep that in mind when you or your child is designing the card. I imagine green cards with a forest in gold or Happy Holidays written in silver on blue. But that doesn’t sound very creative does it? Well, I’ll leave the work up to you or your children as I finished all the tuition-earning I plan to do in my lifetime about 12 years ago–haha, I’m sure I’ll be filling out all the scholarship forms right along side my girls in about 15 years. The contest has already started and you have until January 15, 2008 to come up with a birthday, holiday or even all-occasion greeting card. Good luck!

Exclusion…it starts early

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Poor Lexi.

S is over here today after school playing and Emma and S are clearly in their own little world together.  Emma made S a bracelet for school and they’re pretty much lording it over her that she doesn’t have it.  I have a little talk with Emma about being nice to her sister and Lexi walks up and asks why Emma was in trouble.  I told her she was being mean to her.  So Lexi looks upset and I pick her up and bring her inside.  She says to me, "I want Emma to be my friend."  Aww, Lexi feels left out.  Who knew feeling left out could start at two years old?

Want to be a developer?

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Ok, if you didn’t know, my title at work is "IT Developer".  So I found this list of Top Ten Reasons You Aren’t Cut Out to be a Developer rather funny.  I’m not sure if it was meant to be funny yet or not but I have to agree with their list.  I’m guessing many of you can relate to a few of these in your own job.  If not, I may just be more geeky than I thought.

  1. You’d rather be trained than self-teach
  2. You like regular working hours
  3. You prefer regular raises to job-hopping
  4. You do not get along well with others
  5. You are easily frustrated
  6. You are close-minded to others’ ideas
  7. You are not a "details person"
  8. You do not take personal pride in your work
  9. You prefer to shoot first and ask questions later
  10. You do not like the geek type of person

Works for me Wednesday: Sunshine and Hugs

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I can’t count the number of times I’ve been so frustrated as a mother.  The kids are whining.  They’re bored. I’m frustrated.  I’m yelling ready to yell.  We’ve been in the house all day and we are going stir crazy.  Two things that have always helped me are hugs and sunshine. 

Number one – get down on your knees and just hold your baby.  Give them a huge hug that says I’m listening and you have my full attention.  Sometimes that’s all my kids need.  They just want me.  And then I try to keep them on my lap to snuggle more and they want to go play, play, play.

Just yesterday I was getting frustrated leaving the house. I was losing patience and as I went by Emma’s side of the van, the door was open and I just leaned in, asked for a kiss and a hug and somehow it made it all better.  Not just for them but for me.

Number two – go outside!  When you don’t work outside the home, sometimes you don’t even feel fresh air for hours or maybe days on end.  There’s something about walking out, breathing fresh air and just letting the kids play in the yard.  Yes, you might have to push them on the swing for 30 minutes but it’s worth it.

This isn’t rocket science and it won’t probably won’t cure all that ails you, but it works for me!

Tackle It Tuesday

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Tackle It Tuesday Meme
 

This is just what I needed to do a cleanup of my kitchen countertop.  This is the countertop that is on the right when you walk in from the garage and EVERYTHING gets put there.  I usually give it a clean as good as this one every month or two.  I’m not happy with all the cords hanging in the after picture but Scott is not here to fix all that.  And at least the countertop is cleaned.  So here we go:

Before:

IMG_9700

After:

IMG_9705