Good morning everyone! It is raining here! Yes, water falling out of the sky is a good thing, I found out. It does not necessarily mean that we need to start building an ark : ) It has been eighteen months since we had any rain for any real amount and last night we got an inch, Praise the Lord!

What else is going on? It is cold! I think you bloggers up north sent this cold front just so I could sympathize with you. It is only going to get up into the forties today! Oh well, that will give me a good excuse to curl up with a book and not do much. I hate the cold!

Tomorrow, I am going to make an announcement which has to do with the message board that I have talked about starting. So please come back and check it out.

I have some work that needs to get done, so I have to go. See you tomorrow!

Good morning every one. How are you doing?

Last night, some of my siblings and I watched another episode of the first TV show that we have ever watched on television (we have watched some very old TV series on DVD). The show is called Homeland Security USA. It comes on every Tuesday at 7:00 central time, and we have really enjoyed it.

It is all about different branches of law enforcement and how they work hard to keep us safe. It is really a neat show, and it is something that the whole family might enjoy. You might want your parents to watch one episode before you do to make sure that they approve of it.

Not much is going here right now so I guess I will end this post now, before I start to ramble about nothing.

Jessica has a feature over on her blog call “Writing on Weekends” where she gives a prompt, and then you write a story, and post it to your blog. This is my story, I hope you enjoy it.

Yezmin Fisher looked at the seaport that her ship was approaching. She strained her eyes to see the face that she had come so far to see. The wind played with her long, dark hair, pulling it across her young yet very mature face. The boat crossed the wake of another ship that had passed a few moments before, sending a spray of salty water at her, but Yezmin didn’t mind. She had lived near the sea all her life and had spent hours with her papa on his fishing boat.

A tear slid down Yezmin’s face as she thought of her papa, who had worked so hard to support her and her sickly mama for all those years, yet never quite having enough. The bills from the doctors that had tried so hard to save Mama had been large, and Papa never was able to pay them all back in his lifetime; he worked himself to death trying.

Yezmin’s papa died when she was only fifteen, and with no other siblings or other close relatives, she was left totally alone in the world. The people that her papa owed money to took the house and everything that Yezmin and her parents had owned to settle the debt, leaving her homeless. That is when Tom came into her life.

Tom had found her huddled outside the inn that they were staying in. Tom was an American but his mother and father had emigrated from Sweden before he was born. He could understand Yezmin perfectly as she poured out to him her sad story. Tom’s father was in Sweden for several months conducting business, and Tom convinced his father to have Yezmin stay with them, to keep house for them while they were there in exchange for her food and a warm place to sleep.

When it had come time for Tom to go home he helped her find a place to work. The night he was to leave, he took her on a walk.

“I’m coming back for you,” he promised and gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “You are the most wonderful girl I ever met, and I wish I didn’t have to leave you, but I don’t have the money for your passage now. Trust God, and know that I will send for you as soon as I get the money.

Yezmin looked toward the shore again and looked for Tom’s dear face. They were close enough to see the people on the shore and Yezmin was afraid. It had been over a year since she had last seen him, and she was afraid that she wouldn’t recognize him. Then she saw him, standing on a pile of luggage trying to get her attention. He had seen her and she waved wildly at him. She was almost there! Soon she would be at Tom’s side and there was nothing but death that could separate them again.

Yesterday I had the time to read I book that I bought last week. It was a book that I had wanted to read since it came out, but I found it at a resale shop at a price I could afford last week. The book was High Calling; the courageous life and faith of space shuttle Columbia Commander Rick Husband, by Evelyn Husband.

I have read many books on great men and women of the faith, and this belongs among them. Mr. Husband wanted to be an astronaut from the time he was four years old, and he never wavered from that goal. He spent the first thirty years of his life working to meet all the requirements for NASA’s astronaut program and was turned down twice. It was after the fist rejection that God really got a hold of him and changed his life.

This book was a great example of following God and trusting him in all things. I would highly recommend it.

I have a lot of books I am working on right now and they include, Tales from Grace Chapel Inn by Melody Carlson (a sweet fiction book), Whatever It Takes by J.D. Hayworth (about securing our border), and Discipleship by J. Heinrich. What are you guys reading?

Sometimes, we don’t need a tip or suggestion on how and what to write. Sometimes, what we really need is just a word of encouragement. We want and need to know that there are others out there, rooting for us and working toward the same goal. I know that many of you are working on writing a novel, like I am, and sometimes you get tired and discouraged. I can’t tell you the number of times that I have been that way, so today is strictly going to be a Writing Saturday to encourage each other.

What is the one thing that discourages you the most when you are writing? For me, it is the feeling that I am not writing well. I can’t tell you how many times that I have been writing, and I want what I am writing to have a certain sound or feel to it, and I just can’t get it the way I want it. When this happens I often just pound my way through it and go back and fix it later.

Are there any words of encouragement that you would like to share with your fellow writers?

Most of us make the resolution to read in our Bibles every day, and a few of us, like Anna Joy, actually manage to keep that resolution. For most of us, however, we let things get in our way.

Some of us, like Mary Beth, fill our days so full that we don’t leave enough time to read the Bible. There are so many good and even godly activities that you can fill your days with that sometimes we just lose sight of what is really important.

Some of us are like Maria Rose, we have the time, we just spend it on different things. We feel like there is so much that we need and want to do and our time with God gets put on the bottom of the list.

One of the things that I have done that has helped me be faithful in reading my Bible every day is I don’t allow myself to write a blog post until I have read in my Bible. I love to write blog posts so this is a good motivator for me. You might also try reading a commentary on the book of the Bible that you are reading; this might give you some great insight.

Do you have any ideas? What helps you to read your Bible?

The cast;
Mary Beth is twenty years old, shy, sweet and cares deeply for those in need. She is the second child of five siblings and her greatest pleasure is being with her family.

Anna Joy, is a fifteen-year-old girl who is just trying to survive high school. She is part of a very growing family (number eight was born recently) and is close to her older sister but wishes she had time to have friends outside the family.

Maria Rose is 18 and has just finished school. She has a passion for writing, and also is very lonely and feels left out at times. She is close to her family, especially her 17 year old sister.
Mary Beth glances toward her Bible as she hurries to tie her unruly hair up into a decent looking pony tail. She would love to read in her Bible for a while, but she doesn’t have the time. She is already late for work and doesn’t have any time to spare. She rushes out the door and into her car, glad that she has a boss who won’t be upset at her for being late this once.

When Mary Beth gets home that evening, she has to work on a school report for about an hour before rushing off to teach a class for children that she does once a week. When she gets home, she falls into bed and glances over at her Bible. She feels too tired to even pick it up.

Anna Joy wakes up and slips out of her room with her Bible. Starting her day with the Bible is so important to Anna Joy that she has only missed it a few days out of the year, and that was because of severe illness. With such a large family, the few minutes every morning that she spends reading her Bible in a corner somewhere are usually the only few minutes of quiet she gets. She loves her quiet time.

Maria Rose has the best of intentions, she wants to read her Bible every day, and tries to read it every morning before she does a single thing, but today it just didn’t happen. She was too tired when she woke up, and then she had to make breakfast. She spent most of the day in town or doing things on her computer. When she crawled into bed that night and was having her prayer time she suddenly realized that she hadn’t even cracked her Bible open the entire day. What was wrong with her?

All right, now it is your turn. What was the point of the story? Which character do you most identify with?

I had hoped to post pictures of completed doll dresses to show today, but I didn’t finish a single one. I worked on a couple, but I got really tired so I didn’t finish even one.

Thank you all for your prayers; I am feeling better and I didn’t run a fever yesterday. Praise God! I know that some of you are not feeling well either, and I am keeping you in my prayers.

We are taking a trip into town today, and if the word 'trip' sounds like an exaggeration, it takes us half an hour to get to the nearest town of any real size. It seems to take most of the day when ver we go into town, but I like living out in the country.

Sorry that this post is so short; I need to get ready to go.

I am sick and tired of being tired and sick! Okay, so I get that way really quick, but I can’t help it. I hate being sick! So today I am going to sew a bunch of doll clothes for my family and to sell. Maybe that will make me feel better.

I started sewing when I was about eight and haven’t stopped since. I love to make doll clothes even more than real dresses, and so, as my little sisters grow up and stop playing with dolls, I make them just to look at. I am going to try to sell some on my Etsy account and see if they do well.

I might get access to high speed internet tomorrow so that I can post picture of what I make. That is one of the things I hate about dial-up, you can’t post pictures anytime you want.

Do you like to sew? What do you like to sew the best?

P.S. Thank you guys for your prayers and encouragement.

For those of you who may have started reading my blog recently, you may wonder why there are no posts on Sundays, or maybe you haven’t noticed because I have not been posting on a regular enough basis. Anyway, I don’t write blog posts on Sundays because we usually don’t turn on the TV or computer on Sundays. We do this to honor the Lord’s Day, and to encourage ourselves to spend quality time with our family.

Yesterday, I stayed home from church because I felt so irritated with every little thing that I was afraid I would start yelling at my sibling or even people in the church. No, this is not my normal state of being, nor do I like staying home from church. In fact, I was very mad at myself for not being able to get a handle on my emotions. This is not normal for me, even when I feel irritated I can usually get a grip on it, but I just couldn’t seem to yesterday.

I spent a long time having my own private worship service and prayed that God would calm my heart. It helped some, but I still could not shake that feeling, and so I did something that I rarely do on a Sunday - I watched a movie. Sometimes when I am having a really hard time, getting my mind off the issue or feelings for a little bit helps me. By the middle of the movie, I realized why I had felt so irritated that morning - I started to run a fever.

Okay, now you all know one of my biggest weak spots: I have a hard time being a good person when I am sick. It is something that I have struggled with and am still working on. I am so thankful that I serve a God who will love and forgive his children no matter how many times they make the same stupid mistakes, aren’t you?

Have a great day everyone!