I love taking photos, and I hate editing photos. I believe that if you take a good photo then you don’t need to photoshop the crap out of it. My photos are all na-tur-al. Anyway I have decided to sell my photos and use the money that I make from it to help out some friends of mine who are in the process of adopting from across the big ocean. So check out my new site and while your at it order an awesome photo for your bare walls. http://deborahruth.sggd2.com/

So now that I have started my new job I can start tithing again, which is great. I have been brought up knowing what 10% of my allowance is since before I was even in school. I like tithing and I have been blessed by God greatly financially which I believe has to do with my faithfulness with my own money.

So my new thought pattern is where does your tithe have to go. I understand that when people tithe to the church they are helping the church pay for all of the necessities, which includes the pastors pay which I am grateful for as a pastors kid and a soon to be pastor myself. But then there are those times when you go to the annual church meetings and they go over all the finances, and you are able to see where each and every dollar was spent from direct tithes and it concerns me how little seems to be spent on taking care of widows and orphans (or you know those in need). There are certain groups or organizations that each church might give money to but what about those individuals that need help with a worthwhile cause.

If our money is suppose to go to the church, and we are not suppose to look at the church as a building but as a group of people then does that mean I can give my tithe to people that are going to be using that money for good, and for God’s work…to further His Kingdom? If I give my money to other Christians they are the church.

Any thoughts?

Today while feeding E her yummy baby food I was forced to do the airplane trick so she would actually eat the nasty orange stuff on the spoon, while doing the airplane I had the following conversation with the boys:

J: Do you feed your kids like that too?

Me: I don’t have any kids.

J: When are you going to have kids?

Me: I don’t know…in a few years.

J: What if you got one now?

Me: Where would I get one?

J: From Jesus

Me: Well then I would have a kid

N: What if you got one from God?

Me: I would have a kid.

N: What if you got one from a bad person?

Me: I don’t know if bad people would randomly give me a baby…

And that was the end of the conversation.

So if God or Jesus do not give me a baby I guess I should be on the look out for a bad person with a baby that looks like they need to get the little thing of their hands.

I just bought a new pair of shoes. But I didn’t just buy myself a pair of shoes, I also bought a pair for a child in a third world country who without shoes canget terrible diseases and cannot go to school. I bought these shoe from http://www.tomsshoes.com/ which is a company that donates a pair of shoes to a child for every pair of shoes we buy. I am so excited to get my shoes in the mail. They are bright yellow and awesome looking. It is good to know that through buying something that we need we can also give something to those who need the same thing. Looking forward to wearing my bright shoes around and can’t wait to tell others to buy Toms shoes.

I am offically a Nanny. I have three amazing kids; there is J who is a bright and crazy 4 1/2 year old who looks like Macaulay Culkin. J is very funny and acts way older than he is. Next in line comes N who is going to be 3 in a few weeks. He is also way beyond his years. My favorite trait of N is that when he is on the potty he must have a book to read. N is full of hugs and laughter. Finally comes little E who is 15 months and the cutest little girl ever. When you tickle her she can’t stop laughing. She is a little monkey and climbs on everything and eats whatever she can get her hands on…this includes sand.

I am so excited to spend my days with these three little rugrats. Each moment with them makes me realize how much of me dreams of being a mommy and not just a nanny.

This past week and a half has been a time where mine and Stefan’s apartment has been in constent use. Stefan’s sister was here for a few days and was in and out of our place along with her boyfriend. Stefan’s bestfriend was staying with us during our seminar week (a week long intensive in a class) and now my two best friends are staying a couple of days until they go home for the summer. It has been a very interesting time, lots of fun and plenty of company but not a lot of down time. 

This past week has also been busy because of my seminar class which was all about preaching holiness. It was an amazing class and I loved it so much. I also bought a netbook and I named him Buddha, he is super cute. 

I start my job on Tuesday as a nanny for three little kids. I am really excited and I am sure there will be tons of stories that will be blogged about it. Life will get some what back to normal when our place is empty again but will be competly different because school is out and jobs must start. Time for real life. The plus side of everyone leaving is we got everyones left over food and now have a bookcase full of extra food (it looks like we are planning for Y2K or a tornado scare).

If I could be any Disney Princess it would be Pocahontas. Not only is she super awesome but she lives in the woods and climbs over stuff and is not at all like all those other frilly Disney ladies. I love Pocahontas, which is why I am watching it right now. I have always wanted to be a Native (I mean more than I am already which is not a lot, I am what they call in the movie a “pale visitor”).

So this post was not going to be about how I want to be Pocahontas it was more going to be about the song that she sings in the beginning “Just around the river bend”. This song talks about how the river is ever changing and not always calm. Life is so much like that (which is the underlying meaning to the song), but it is definetly my life right now. I am done all my classes but still need to do my 6 month internship, but that does not start until January because I am waiting for Stefan to be able to do his. I am waiting to hear back about a job that I thought I had but I have not heard back from them to say when I will start. I have never been in a school longer than three years until I came to College so after four years here I am so ready to get out and do something new, get into a new river kind of thing. I need a change, something big, something exciting…I need an adventure.

Before

For one of our classes we have group projects where we have to create a worship service. Stefan’s group is the last group to present and it takes place tomorrow afternoon. He missed the first few meetings for his group and did not know what was going on. He went to a group meeting yesterday

and was given the task of making 20 Yamikas (those little Jewish hats) for their service. Being the good wife that I am I agreed to help do them.

The Process

We found an old sheet and Stefan cut out 20 circles, than cut triangles in all of them and I had the task of sewing them up to make little hats. It gave me an idea of what my mom and other moms went through multiple times when their children were growing up and they would one day mention that they needed 6 dozen cupcakes for school…tomorrow…and they mention this at 9 oclock at night. So after Lost was done I sat down and sewed the 20 yamikas, it did not take that long, but the sad part was if it had at least been cupcakes I could have snacked on a few of them and eaten frosting Oh well.

20 Yamikas

Stefan and his Yamika

Well now that I am married I realize so much more that I need money. I am going to be done classes in April and will not be going back to school until January which means I have a lot of free time which should be filled with something that enables me to get paid. Well I have never been a person that likes working or at least working at every day things (like serving coffee or whatever else people do in life). It does not help that I live in a super small town that never has openings anywhere. So I decided that I want to be a Nanny for the next 10 months, I love kids and maybe if I am with them all day I will not want one so much (yeah I don’t think that will actually help). So I have been on a quest for a Nannying job, again the problem with living in a small town is that no one needs a nanny or at least if they do they do not pay as well as they would in a city. And if I do happen to get pregnant I would not feel as bad if I had a job because I would at least have a bit of an income to you know…feed and cloth the kid (I mean I feed it for the first 6 months anyway, and other people will buy them clothes…all I have to do is buy some cloth diapers and I am set…ok they might need more than that but that is another post for another time).

In Jr. High and High School my friend Molly who was originally from North Carolina had the funniest mom. She hated the snow and always said that it would be better if it was anthraxing outside instead of snowing. I completely agree (in fact I said this a while back and now it is a quote in this years yearbook).

I mean come on, this white crap outside is terrible. It is cold and wet and then there is ice and all the crap from the sand that we put down to get rid of the stuff. Man I can’t wait for summer to get here (this is theMaritimes we don’t really have spring).

And what happened to Global Warming?? I was all for it and now Texas is getting snow and Florida is below freezing….that is not right at all. I couldn’t wait for the ice caps to melt and the palm trees to start growing. I mean if people are worried about not having any place to live once Florida and those other warm areas are under water they can just come to Canada we have tons of extra room.

So heres to Global Warming