Household Appliances {good, bad, and broken}

Do you have any OCD tendencies?  I have a few.  

And one of them is this:

(It's sort of a reversed OCD thing, I would say, so I'm not too worried.)

The vacuum cord.  This is how I throw the thing together after sweeping the floor:  Willy-nilly, quick and painless, fun and whimsical.  That's me!

Easy enough, right?  A quick wrap-up, put the thing away, and call it done.



But here is how I find it when any one of my six children or husband have used it:

The cord wrapped around the designated hook thingys.  Neat, tidy, and so very quirky.  Oh, the time it takes to do that!  Ain't nobody got time for that.

But yet, they do it.  Every single blasted time.  And it annoys me, truth be told.

Is that wrong?  Is that weird?  Is that OCD?  On my part....or theirs?


But that's not all.  They also frequently hook the end of the cord onto the end-of-the-cord notch.

Who does this?  (Every single person in my house except me, that's who.)

I'm just really glad that my free-spirited personality doesn't hold me captive to take the time to do all this extra work.  And if I can ever brainwash convince any one of these people to do the same, I will declare my mission on this earth to be well-done.

Live a little, people!  That's what I always say.


Completely unrelated to all of that.

My 10+ year old oven bit the dust yesterday.

Let me tell you, I got a gob of miles out of that baby.  Gobs!

K-Man attempted to fix it, but the new part was not cost-worthy.  And we certainly can't afford a brand new oven.  But thankfully, God provided for this need a long time ago.  Remember the free oven I got that I put in my garage??

Welp, K-Man just worked his magic and installed it inside, easy peasy.

How fabulous!!!!  And I love it so much.  It was not only FREE, but it is so fresh and new(ish) and wonderful!!

I'm really happy.  Even if my entire family doesn't know how improperly put away a vacuum.

#Godsprovision.



Enjoy the rest of your week!!!

look what God did!

Oh my gracious.


God did a really cool thing for us!

Last summer I was thinking how nice it would be to have a stove in the garage
to cook with when it's blistering hot out, so not to heat up the house.
Well, we decided to keep our eye
out for a good used one,
but didn't give it much more thought.
Nor did we ever make an effort to look for one.

Well, as I've started baking a ton of bread,
I've revisited the hope of getting another stove.
I prayed about it.
But again,
it was one of those things that I didn't put much thought into.


BUT GOD!

So K-man has been working on a big kitchen remodel job
(he's an electrical contractor)
and told me nonchalantly that the people were
getting rid of their old stove and
asked me if I wanted him to offer to buy it.
I said sure, if we could get it for about $50-100.
So then I started praying that the people would want to sell it to us.
And the more I prayed,
the more the Lord led me to pray to get it for FREE.
FREE?
Ok, God....please provide it to us for FREE.
A few days went by.


Guess what husband came last night?

An almost-new stove, that has hardly been used.
Nary a scratch or speck of dirt.

For FREE.

Yep, that's what my God did for me.

How cool is that?

Way cool.
And SO God.

Oh how He loves you and me.

an empire {the zucchini needs to be appreciated}

I started praying last week that God would be
creative in his provision for our family.

Our budget is t-i-g-h-t and adjusting to two more kids,
makes it tough.

So of course I would love to expectantly go to the mail box
to find an unexpected big-fat check.

God is certainly capable of doing that!

BUT,
here are a few ways God has creatively provided recently:

*Fresh zucchini and cucumbers from my in-laws' garden.
*Fresh pineapple from my mom's Midwest garden (haha, not really).
*Fresh sweet corn from my friend Angela's grandma's crop.
*A plethora of eggs from my hen crop (more on that later).
*New clothes/shoes my mom bought the kids.

Now listen,
I do realize that probably ALL of you are getting these types of things.
It's summer...and that's just what happens.
People share their abundance with others.

True enough.
But I guess in the past I just counted it as me lightening someone
load and doing them a favor to take their extras off their
hands.

But this time, after having prayed for God's creative provision,
I completely saw it as PROVISION.

Each item of food provided wonderfully delicious and nutritious side dishes
for several dinners for my family.

I figure if God wants us to care for the small things,
in order for Him to give us bigger things,
the zucchini needs to be appreciated.

:)

So as for my eggs.

Oh, what is God up to?

As you may recall, when Kelly was in China, I took over the
chicken care.

I had never really done it before.
It was icky to me and was HIS job, so I always avoided it.

But when he was gone, I found myself...loving it.
I would go out multiple times a day to
look in on my feathered friends.

I even talked to them.

Well...nothing has really changed.
I still do all that.
I go out multiple times a day to gather eggs, give fresh water,
and for one-sided chats.
Which is really refreshing compared to what goes on
inside the people house.


So suddenly my eyes were opened to the fact my eggs were stock-piling.
I needed to do something because...
God was creatively providing.
Then He dropped the idea into my head to call the
little country farm market where we buy our feed to see if they
wanted to buy my eggs to resell.
So I did.
Sure enough, they were eager to buy them.
I hopped on my horse and buggy and took them five dozen eggs.
I got store credit to put towards our feed.
It was dejevou
(I have no idea how to spell that and neither does my spell-check. Dang French).
I felt like I was reliving an episode of Little House on the Prairie.
But Nellie Olson was nowhere to be found.
Thank goodness.

You guys, I was reeling with delight.

Delight, I tell you.

I couldn't believe that I had done such a Proverbs 31-type thing.

When I got home I told Brenden all about it.
Hoping he wouldn't make fun of me.
He said,
"Mom, you've just started an empire."

Don't you know it!

So guess what else I did?

I ordered 15 pullets last night.
Oh, yes I did.

*That's female chicks for you civilians*

I also made an "Eggs For Sale" poster to hang on our church bulletin board.
Oh, yes I did.
Nothing can stop me now.

Bwahahahaha.
*Insert evil greedy laughter*

An empire?

Creative provision.