Desk project

Hubby & I have caught the "building things" bug! Our latest project is new desk area for our living room/computer room. As you can see, we have Hubby's desk, the big one to the right. Then we have a hutch & 3 mismatched desks on the left. For some time, I have wanted to build in a desk/table to replace the stuff on the right.

So we build a desk. Here the kids are helping sand one of the desk parts.

It is a pretty simple design. 5 2x4s screwed together in a rectangle. Each desk part has 3 of these "legs". The top is a plywood piece that is 2x6.

We made 3 desk units. The one on the far right had to have about 2 ft. cut off in order to get it to fit.

After these desks sat in the living room for about 2 weeks, I finally had a nice day. We carried them to the garage where I sanded them. Then we turned them upside down. I painted the legs black to match Hubby's desk.

When the legs were dry, we turned them back upside right. Then I stained the tops & coated them with polycrylic. This took all took about 4 days. I love the way they turned out.

Today we carried them in & put them in place. They are a little darker than Hubby's desk but it makes that half of the room look more uniform. We still need to hook the 3 units together for extra stability.

Now we have a nice big table/desk for laptops, projects & school work. We even have room for extra laptops when we have StarCraft parties! Now to get the old desks moved to each of the kids' rooms & get the house put back in order.

I wonder what our next project will be??

 

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Trusting & letting go of control!

God tells us again & again to trust in Him, to fear not, to worry not because He loves us & cares for us! But in our human nature, that is so hard! Time & time again, I pick those worries & fears up instead of leaving them at His feet.

I finally figured out why I struggle with trust. It's because I think I know best. I think if I'm in control of it all, then I can work it all out the way I want things to come out. Only 1 thing wrong with this thinking, I'm NOT in control of anything. I think I am, but I'm not.

Sometimes I think I must really be a source of absolute amusement for God. He must sit there just shaking His head at me while trying not to laugh while I'm trying to do everything & be everything to everyone. Much like I get amused when one of my kids try to do an adult task that they clearly have no ability to master.

The longer I live, the more I realize that I have absolutely no control over anything. Only God does! Since He knows all & sees all, I can trust Him to lead me where I need to go.

I share all this so I can tell you about my weekend. We had homeschool conference in Cincy on Thursday through Saturday. 6 hrs on Thursday, 14 hrs on Friday & 9 hrs on Saturday of walking, looking at curriculum, sitting in workshops & being around thousands of people. Follow this up with a very busy Sunday which included Hubby heading off for his first travel assignment in 3 months!

Amazing! That's the only word to describe it! I still hurt, I still was tired & I still had a few moments of total neurological overload. BUT I had such peace & knew God was carrying me through each moment of the weekend. I made it through the conference & even was able to help with a reception at church on Sunday & have kids over to play. I made it through! And I'm not crashing today! I'm sore & tired but not completely crashing!I started to stress over this all last week. But decided that God knew I was in a Fibromyalgia flare-up & knew all the weekend involved. So, I decided to trust Him. I asked my prayer warrior friends & family to pray for me. Then I resolved to trust God & head into the long weekend activities.

I can not find the words to adequately thank God for carrying me through! I'm so thankful to all my faithful prayer warriors for their part in this weekend! What a difference it made!

 

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Innocence Lost

I'm sure you know this world is corrupt. I'm sure you know we have an enemy, Satan, who lurks about deceiving people & blinding them to the truth. He also tries to hurt God's children & cause them to fear life & turn from God. Many times our life moves along so smoothly that we forget our enemy is there. But I'm here to tell you that he is real. He wants to destroy families, pervert the innocent & cause us to blame God.

 

But, (I love that word!), God is bigger & stronger & has already won the war! God is truth! And the truth will prevail. Even when we face our biggest fear, God is with us! And if He is with us, who can stand against us? As we face our fear, we can already praise God & thank Him for standing with us through it!

If you saw your children playing like this, wouldn't you be a proud parent. Your kids love each other & are getting along. They even tell each other "I love you."

 

Now, add to that a bad attempt at a wedgie. Totally inappropriate especially in public, but totally innocent, right?

 

But when seen by a man who doesn't know you or your family dynamic, it turns into your worst nightmare. He saw this all as perverted. He called the police!

 

What followed was a very stressful evening of waiting followed by CPS & police interviews. Thanks to prayers, the truth was seen & the case closed. God was so merciful & provided us with very skilled & professional men to deal with who protected our kids' innocence.

 

I'm thankful for this incident because it opened our eyes to how unsafe the world is & how foreign & rare a loving family is these days. It also reaffirmed what an Awesome God we serve who comforts us & answers prayers.

 

I also pray that God will use this situation to bring glory to Himself and use it to maybe help some other family.

 

 

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