Buy Low, Sell High

One of my favorite events of the year is just around the corner ... It's the Rhea Lana of Broken Arrow children's consignment sale! If you don't know about RL, then you can check out the entire site at http://brokenarrow.rhealana.com/. The Fall event will be held at 121st & Elm in BA (near Wal-Mart) from Sept 8th-14th. Questions? Just ask me! This is my fifth sale to participate in as a seller/buyer. You can also email the owners (Debbie & Kristin). These ladies are phenomenal!

Buyers:  RL has it all - clothes, toys, strollers, books, shoes, high chairs, etc. You name it, they have it. All of the items sold at RL are brought in by mom's/dad's just like you that are willing to sell their gently used items to a new home.

Sellers: RL is a GREAT place to make some money. Just look around your house. I'm sure that you can see toys that don't get played with, or you know of clothes that don't get worn. Maybe there are unused items in your childs closet? Maybe they are in tubs in the attic? RL is looking to sell those items ... and plenty of local moms are looking to buy them. Sellers also get extra perks for volunteering their time, helping to advertise, etc. If this is your first year to sign up, please tell them I sent you.

I've been collecting items for this sale ever since my youngest started growing out of her Fall/Winter clothes. Besides clothing, I will also put the following items in the sale: two high chairs, a large outdoor play item, toys, lots of shoes, socks, bibs, rattles, books, DVD's, etc. I just started sorting and tagging my items over the weekend so I have a lot of work ahead of me. Honestly, it takes work, but it's one of the easiest processes to go through. You know I'm serious when I say that since it's coming from a mom of three small kids with a part time job and NO free time. Trust me, it's EASY and WORTH it!

This is just a tiny sample of what I'm preparing to sale. Speaking of, I've got to get off of here because I have more sorting and tagging to do. Come to think of it, you might need to start doing the same!

Do Not Repeat

Today is one of those days that I don't want to repeat...

Hit #1) After a huge storm last night, we woke up to find three parts of our fence blown down and one of our chocolate labs was missing. Chewy was found on our neighbors back porch, but Squirt is still gone. We've had both of the dogs (sisters) since they were 2 months old and they are now almost 8 years old. They are a part of the family so we are heartbroken, but hopeful that we'll find our lost dog. Here is a picture of her in case you live near us and you see her roaming around.

Hit #2) When we bought our house a year ago, the fence needed to be replaced. We knew that we would eventually tackle this project, but last nights storm took out enough of the fence that we can't put this off any longer. Fences are not cheap ... and this is not in the budget.

Hit #3) After lunch, Parker climbed into a chair at our dinner table, turned around, and sat on the edge of the table. I was seconds from her, but you know how quick kids can be when you turn your back for even a moment. I quickly walked toward her to get her down. On my way, and all within a few seconds, she tipped the chair back, and it fell backwards to the ground with her in it. I couldn't get to her in time so she scraped her forehead on the backdoor and she got a pretty good cut. Thankfully, she landed on the small rug by our backdoor so that helped (a little bit). The only silver lining to this story was that, as I ran toward her, I tossed a bag of Frito's and chips went flying. I later found a Frito in the living room and it made me smile.


All of these events make me feel like my family is under attack, and I know that the Devil likes to attack when things are seemingly good and/or when we have something in line that He doesn't like. I was recently asked to speak at my church in August so I feel like the Devil is trying to throw these random things at us to bring me down. In the past month, we've been hit pretty hard financially. I'm still awaiting the bills for my unexplained finger surgery, last week we realized that both of our car tags were expired (we didn't get the notices because we moved) so we had to pay $200 in late fee's in addition to the cost of the tags, and now we've lost a dog and we need a new fence. Well played, Devil, well played.

Unfortunately for him, when events like this occur, they only draw us closer to God. The following verse came to mind this morning as I was dealing with the days events:

Romans 5:3-5 - "Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us."

Then this evening I came across this verse:

Ephesians 6:13 - "Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand."

After all of this, we are still standing. Hey Devil - YOU LOSE!


**ADDITION** The power of prayer will never cease to amaze me. Our dog was found within an hour of me writing this blog. GOD IS GOOD!

And I Quote...

Our girls are hilarious! After sharing some of their quotes with family and friends, my brother suggested that we start writing them down. So, for your reading pleasure, here are some of the things our girls have said (mostly from Bailey since she's the oldest) ...

• "Food makes me dance!"
• After being bit in the eyelid by a mosquito and her eye turning blue and swelling, I asked Bailey if she wanted meds for her eye. She said, "Yes, but let's put meds in my mouth and they'll go up to my eye."
• Parker started grunting in the car and Bailey said, "You're not going to shoot poop on me are you? Because that would be terrible!"
• Parker, Bailey, and I were in the recliner when 3 year old Bailey said, "Ow mom. Your elbow is on my booby."
• After sleeping with a hard plastic doll, Bailey said, "I can't sleep with this doll anymore. Her nails are scratching my knees."
• "My heart is beeping really fast." Aka - beating
• "Mom, you should have seen how big my poop was. It was bigger than dads!"
• Bailey asked if we could get Gypsy Ice (sno cones) after dinner, and I said no because her sisters didn't eat very much dinner. She said, "next time make a better dinner!"
• "That's the bestest thing I never did and now Lou's ruining it!"
• While driving, Lou said, "There's Taco Blano." Bailey said, "It's not Blano. It's Blanco."
• "I want cereal with full grain fiver." Aka - Whole grain fiber
• Lou said, "I have a bologna bottom." Aka - Bony bottom
• "Where's the Speed Lemon sign?"
• "Who wants cake? You want funella?" Aka - vanilla
• "That toot brought some pee-pee with it."

And that my friends, is a pretty accurate description of our everyday lives. We wouldn't change it for the world!

What's the Point?

On Saturday morning, I barely noticed that the cuticle on my right pointer finger was starting to hurt. I went about my busy day and didn't pay much attention to the fact that the pain was increasing. By Saturday night, I noticed that my cuticle was starting to swell so I put some neosporin on it. I also noticed a slight pain in my right armpit. Again, nothing about this threw up any red flags ... until I woke Sunday morning. By then, my cuticle was swollen, red, white, and very painful. My right armpit was also in a significant amount of pain. By pain, I mean, my finger and armpit hurt really, really bad, but let's face it, I've given birth three times so when compared to those events, the pain was minimal. So, I put neosporin and a band-aid on and we went to church. I ran into a friend at church, who just happens to be a nurse, so I showed her my finger. She confirmed that it needed to be looked at and that the pain in my armpit was more than likely a sign that the infection had spread from my finger to the lymph nodes in my armpit. Good grief!

So, I went to the doctor this morning. By the time I got to my appointment, the pain had increased and I had a low grade fever. Because there was no visible wound on my cuticle (except what was caused by the infection), he said that it was more than likely something as small as a superficial paper cut that happened to get infected. Just my luck! I was prescribed an antibiotic and told to soak my finger in a cup of hot water multiple times a day to help draw the blood to my finger tip to fight the infection. Again, good grief!

For those of you that just have to see a picture, here you go...

So, this leads me to the title of this blog. What's the point? What lesson can I learn from this? Then it hit me, this tiny spot on my finger that caused so much pain to my body, is like the sin in our lives. Often times, we commit the tiniest of sins and we think that we "get away with them" because we see no immediate punishment. However, over time, the tiny sin is slowly doing damage to our bodies as a whole. It starts to grow, it takes over, it leads to more sin. Just like the barely noticeable pain in my finger that led to an obvious infection and eventually caused pain in other areas of my body. That's how sin works. It's sneaky. It comes on when you least expect it and it slowly spreads. By sin, I'm talking about a multitude of things such as, alcohol abuse, cheating, lying, idolizing possessions, money, etc. Sin can come in all shapes and sizes and it's often times unnoticed or unrealized until it becomes a problem.

What tiny sins are you committing in your life that need to be changed? What big sins are you committing that need to be changed? Think about it. You can even can ask God to reveal your sins to you, but be ready to open your heart to change if you do. Once a sin is revealed then work on fixing it. If multiple sins are revealed then choose one. Fix one at a time. For the record, this post is just as much for me as it is for whoever out there is struggling with something and is intended to read this. I hope that you were blessed by this message (minus the gross picture of my finger).

I leave you with this good news...

Romans 3:22-24 - "This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all (that's you and me) have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all (that's also you and me) are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus."