Oh the busyness of me....

So on top of our new homeschool adventures, which have kept me very busy, I have other new projects that have been keeping me busy too!

I seem to spend my saturdays lesson planning, grading, copying and getting everything ready for the upcoming week, and it really seems to take me 6-8 hours to do all of this each saturday, which is pretty much my entire day!! Maybe as I get the hang of it, I can get it down a few hours.....

Then with our new Life Church campus opening, we have jumped right in and started serving and getting involved. Alan, Bourbon & I serve every sunday at the 10am service and then we go to the 11:30am service. Then on Wednesdays I serve in Konnect, the youth group, with a group of 4th grade girls. Starla gets to go to her age class during that time, and the boys are in their own groups. So on Wednesdays we eat dinner there (pizza!) each week at 5:45pm, and then we are there until about 9pm.


Then we started our own Life group in our home. Which has only been meeting for 3 weeks so far, and we have had some people come one week and not the other 2, or 2 weeks and not the third, or come the last week, but in all, if all of the people who have come decide to stick with it, there are 35 of them! In my livingroom! A large number of those are kids, but that makes it even more chaotic. Lol. We had a large addition this week, with this couple who had 9 foster kids (6 of them from the same family, another set of brothers, and then a single boy. 8 boys, 1 girl, ranging in age from 12 to 9 months old (the girl is the baby!)) but a few months ago they went ahead and adopted them all!!! And we have actually "known" this couple for years, they lived across the street from us in our last house, and have been attending south side campus with us for a long time, but we didn't "really" know them, just in face and would wave and say hello. But a few weeks ago I asked her if she wanted to join our life group, and she said that with 9 kids they had never had luck finding a life group, and had been turned away a few times because people just couldn't accomodate them. And I think how sad is it that these wonderful people, who have a heart to not only take in 9 kids, but to then adopt them, can't have a life group because they have so many kids. So I convinced her to come. And this week they did. And it was loud, and crazy and chaotic, but the entire time I thought it was wonderful. :) Right now, the series we are doing at church is called "two gather" and it is all about getting plugged into life groups, and how we need to have a group of like-minded people to encourage, support and hold us accountable. Craig had stories about people who are hurt and the life group comes in with meals and helps, to someone getting really sick and not being able to work for a year and their life group all piched in and supported this family of 4 for an entire year, because that's what we are supposed to do, and I love that, and I want my life group to be like that, so if that means we have a house full of screaming crazy kids so that we can provide support and encouragement and love to this wonderful family, and every other family in our group, than so be it. :) we meet every sunday evening, so sundays stay pretty packed too.

Then also in addition to that I started the Hospitality ministry at the church, where we provide food for families who have had a death in the family, are sick, laid off, new baby, whatever. I now have a crew of about 6 people, and we have had about 6 families that have been referred to us for meals in the last 3 weeks, so I have been busy coordinating all those meals and making sure we get them all covered. Usually each family gets about 3 meals from 3 different people. I'm hoping to get more volunteers so my current ones don't get burned out and feel overburdened, so I have to work on that too. :)

Last week we had something going on every single night. Monday was Bourbon's counseling, tuesday was Starla's open house, Wed was Konnect, Thursday was a ladies event at church, friday Alan & the kids got me 2 tickets to see Gretchen Wilson in Clinton and I took Roman with me, Saturday we had a birthday party, and sunday we had church and life group. It was crazy. This week I've had lunch meetings about my hospitality ministry and then thursday we have a life group leaders dinner, where I will not only be attending as a life group leader, but as a community leader in charge of the hospitality group. :)

I am also trying to get together a project where a group of people go into the local rescue shelter once a month to host a "birthday" party of sorts for the kids in the shelter at that time. I want to come in with cupcakes, balloons, backpacks full of supplies for the kids, etc. I have found several businesses and lots of people who want to be involved with it, but am having a hard time getting a hold of the actual rescue mission to figure out if it is something we can even do! So it has been slow going.


Then of course I have Starla's & Bourbon's birthday parties in the next few weeks, which involves lots of party planning and decorating. :)

Life is busy. And I know I am awful at taking on way too much at a time and getting stretched thin, but I can't even help it.

I feel so blessed to be able to use my gifts and talents to give back and serve others. So I think I am right where I need to be.