Neno's Award (Sorry it took so long)

Andrea over at Arise 2 Write included me in this award. She said she fizzled out before she was able to give the award to all the bloggers she wanted to. So I'll accept it and gladly pass it along.




Thank you sweet, Andrea. You are the neatest lady. You love your Lord. You love your family and you love to share that love with others.

I love that you are a pet therapy lady. Your dogs are a blessing to many and that's because you heard the call to take part in the pet therapy ministry and you accepted it.

You also pray for many and pass prayer requests along through your blog. What an awesome way to use your blog for the Lord's work. God bless you as you continue serving Him in many ways.

I love blogging. I enjoy writing and getting to know others through blogging.
I've read that many of the bloggers out there started their blog as a way to journal and share with their families. It also is a scrapbook for many.

I use it as a way to let off steam, express feelings, encourage others, help people get a laugh, share my past, share my present, share the Lord, and much more. I also find so much encouragement and joy by reading other blogs. It's FUN!!

Neno's award is given to those who love blogging, love to encourage friendships through blogging, and who help others seek the reasons why we all love blogging. I have met so many wonderful people through blogging and I am so excited to pass this along. I want to pass it on to:

Nan at Momstheword

Erica at Scottsville

Christy Rose at The Secret Life of an American Wife and Mom

Mikki at The View from my Beach Chair

Alicia the snowflake at Confessions of a Snowflake

Mimi at He and Me + 3

Stacey at McCrakensX4

Mich at "Mich"

Pilar at The Stark Family

Amy at In Search of Normal

Alicia at More Than Words

Hope at My Hope Is In The Lord

Mckmama at My Charming Kids

Jill at Jill Boyd's Place

Amber at Raising Rascals

Mummy at Samster.com

Lauren at Walking By Faith


There are so many more. If you do not find your name on this list, Please pick this award up. Each person who visits my blog is an encouragement. You are precious to me. GOD BLESS you "all."

Just Stuff

Today is going well and I actually left the house to do a little ordering of supplies at the church for Awana.





So many things are starting up and here I am waiting on a tooth.

My kids are suppose to start school on August 31st. However, there is a strike going on and we won't know if school starts Monday until we get an automated phone call Sunday sometime. My kids were so looking forward to going to school for the first time. They may be on delayed excitement for a bit.

My jobs will probably not start until after school gets well underway when substitutes start getting sick and making appointments and the like. I may have some time to get this tooth situation squared away before I get called to work. I really don't want to start my jobs by saying I can't work cuz my tooth hurts.

Awana starts on September 9th and I want to get ready for that.
I like to be as prepared as possible for when the kids come
all excited and ready to hear God's Word. I want to make sure
we have their shirts and books and other supplies ready for
when they earn the right to wear them. I love Awana!!!!

Unfortunately, the first night for Leaders is September 2nd, the evening after my root canal. Hopefully I'll feel just fine and get to go. Otherwise, I'll be starting cold turkey on the 9th. Thank goodness I have a few years of experience. Hopefully I'll be all prepared.

I also run background checks and make sure all of the children's ministry workers have filled out all of their paperwork for the year. This takes some time. For some reason most folks need to be asked several times to finish the paperwork. This makes it frustrating and time consuming for me, but it needs to be done and I'm the one that has the job.

I am thankful for all the folks who volunteer because without them there would be no ministry for children. I try to be very sweet in trying to get the paperwork done because I don't want to lose any volunteers. We do want to be compliant with insurance requirements and protecting ourselves and the kids. So I will remain diligent and get prepared as best I can. God willing, all will go well. It will certainly be His plan, I know that.

Hanging In There

Today was pretty good. I've taken less pain meds and I slept real good and I did some laundry.

I'm starting to have increased pain now and will be taking some pain meds soon. I will be hanging in there until next Wednesday when I get a root canal. I hope that is the answer for this tooth.

Thank you everyone for your prayers. I'm going to eat some scrambled eggs.
Mmm Mmm! I do miss crunchy food and sturdy meat I'll tell ya that.

God is good. Everything in His time. Pray for patience and strength.

Tooth Problems Again

I am taking a few days off to work through another infected tooth problem. Back in June I had a problem with a tooth and it had to be pulled. I'm praying that I can keep this one. It's been causing a lot of pain and it requires more pain medication than the last one did.

Therefore I'm not quite myself these days. Thank God for my husband and kids. They've been so helpful. My husband has been on vacation (some vacation) so he's been able to take me to the dentist, cook, go to the store and do all kinds of things. He usually does do a lot around the house, but he's doing even more this week.

Next week I'll have a root canal and crown work done, but I'll be on my own cuz he'll be back at work. Since the school district went on strike today, I may have my kids home next week. God knows and will take care of all things.

I'm asking for your prayers again and thanking you in advance. God bless you all. I'll be following again soon. Take care, Mocha Momma.

Not Me Monday August 24, 2009

I'm joining Mckmama over at My Charming Kids for a fun meme.

Her goes my day in "Not Me" fashion. Enjoy!

I did not wake up two times during the night with an aching mouth and take pain reliever. I did not call the dentist first thing in the morning only to find out that he was not on vacation. I did not call his emergency number and I did not have to leave a message. I did not wait an hour or so for him to call back. I did not have some important errands to run. The dentist did not then call while I was gone.

I did not call him back and he did not ask me questions and suggest Vicadin and say "I'll be back in the office on Wednesday. I did not say that I would just keep taking pain reliever every three hours and see him on Wednesday.

I did not think that it would be a good day to take the kids to get some shoes for school. My sister did not call and say she was going to the super mall today. I did not say, I was thinking of going too.

I did not leave the house at almost 2:00pm to head to the super mall. The traffic was not backed up and not really moving much. It did not take 40 minutes to drive to the mall which should not take only 15 to 20 minutes.

I did not hear my phone ring and I did not talk to my sister who was not very close to the store we came in through. We did not find shoes. We did not try to get my son to buy some more clothes with his school money. He did not refuse to shop any more.

We did not go to the food court and find refreshing snacks and Mochas. We did not say our good byes and go our separate ways home. We did not get home in 15 minutes or less.

It was not a fun day in spite of the pain I did not have. We are not happy that we did not find shoes. This not the end, or is it?

Baby Shower For a Friend

The church women hosted a baby shower for our friend, Debbie. Another Debbie made this cute cake which tasted awesome.

Here's the expectant mommy waiting for things to get started. She was actually watching her very cute niece sitting in her car seat.

Guess who fooling around before the game? Yes, it's Nan from Momstheword.

Debbie joined in the fun. She's so cute!

We played a game of passing the pacifier on a straw to the music. This is a mother and daughter.

Debbie's SIL and a friend.

Two of the younger girls. The one in orange won this game.

This game required a player to fold a cloth diaper and pin it onto a doll blindfolded. The fastest won. This is a mother and daughter competing. The mother won over all with a time of 45 seconds. Wow!

More brave moms competed for the coveted prize.

Two of our teens bravely participated.

On with the gift opening and cake & punch.

A hand crocheted blanket by one of the ladies.

There were a lot of gifts, mostly cute clothes and soft blankets, diapers and various other very cool things. I thought this gift from Debbie's niece was pretty neat. This young lady had attached diapers, toys and baby items to a wreath.

I'm pretty sure Debbie has all she needs for her first baby. I think she had fun and was very thankful for all that we did for her. God bless Debbie and her new baby and family.

My Testimony Part II

"He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand." Psalm 40:2


Summary from part one written August 21, 2009. It's about 1982, I'm about 24 years old and I live in a dump in an alley. I'm married to a guy in the Navy Seal team who has a serious drinking problem and didn't want me, his wife, to be in his life, but I was too naive to know it. Sounds like a sad story and it gets worse, but I'm here to tell you, it gets much better, believe me.

It was about this time I decided to go into the US Navy. This helped with my self esteem, but as soon as I left boot camp I began heavy social drinking and made some serious mistakes. Unfortunately I felt justified in those decisions and sought opportunity to rub it in my spouses face. I became rebellious and felt like I was fighting back for all that he had done to me.

Moving on. We bought a house and enjoyed getting it set up. We enjoyed boating, water skiing, jet skiing and going to swap meets. We spent a lot of time with friends and partying. I soon became pregnant. I was happy, but very scared that I would be left alone to raise a child.

I wasn't ready to trust the man I had married. I had always had a sense that he would leave me from the morning after our wedding. I had nightmares about it and would wake up screaming, but I never took any of it seriously.

Within six weeks of finding out I was expecting, I had a miscarriage. The morning after the miscarriage I woke up in the hospital with my spouse at my side. His first words were something like this, "I'm going to go fishing. See you later." OUCH! It makes me cry just typing it.

Finally, I began to deal with that sin against me from childhood and got some counseling which helped. I sought marriage counseling, but my spouse wasn't interested.

Fast forward, it's January 1986 and I'm living in a barracks in the Philippines. Yes, I got transferred without my husband. Open a new chapter...I suddenly think that I'm a single woman and I still feel justified in that choice because after all, my spouse had been rotten to me so he can't complain if I do the same to him.

I met some single girls and all we cared about was new clothes, going out drinking and dancing and laying by the pool. I was about 28 years old. I had a lot of fun and did some touring and lot's of shopping. The Philippines is a really beautiful, tropical place but it is ravaged by typhoons, earthquakes and poverty. I met some very sweet nationals there. At one point I had a maid, a seamstress and a yard boy.

About nine months after I got there my spouse got transferred there and we moved into base housing. I spent more time with him partying and drinking. Some of my single friends got transferred out, but my new forever friend was still there. We had been room mates for several months prior to my spouse moving there.

She had renewed her relationship with Christ somewhere in all of this. I noticed a difference in her, but I didn't know what it was. She was going to a place she called "The Center". I wanted to go to "The Center" and see what was going on, but I wasn't sure I would be welcome there.

One night my friend invited me to go with her to "The Center" (Overseas Christian Servicemen's Center or OCSC). I felt accepted and loved and within months I became a Christian. I am 30 years old now and it's September 18, 1988. Several of us were baptized on October 10th in the South China Sea. What a glorious day!

My forever friend and I getting baptized together with loved ones all around us. Her fiance was there, my spouse was not. It was a time of mixed feelings, but I did not regret this decision to follow Christ.

God can forgive anyone of anything. I had accepted that and I was so happy. Life changed rapidly after that. I stopped drinking immediately. God at work. I told my co-workers (all guys) that I had become a Christian. God put it on my heart to stop using bad language. A missionary friend had given me some scripture to memorize which helped a lot.

I started wearing appropriate dresses and going to church (the first time I went to church I wore a black mini skirt and a big shirt over a tank top). I went to "The Center" about three times a week. My parents sent me a Bible with my name on the front for Christmas that year.

All of this was more than my spouse could handle. He asked for orders out of there ASAP and was gone before I could say anything. I moved back into the barracks. My forever friend got out of the Navy and I spent the longest, loneliest seven months waiting to get out of the Navy and go home to my family.

I continued going to "The Center" and spent a lot of time in prayer and counsel with the missionaries there. They were awesome and cared about me and loved me through those lonely months.

I am here to tell you that I survived and God has never failed me. There is no need to depend on others for my happiness. God provides for all my needs. He led me through the next several years of valley's and mountain tops. Life is good in this new chapter God has written for me. PRAISE HIS HOLY & BELOVED NAME!

"Then I said, "Here I am, I have come-
it is written about me in the scroll. I desire to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart." Psalm 40:7 & 8.