We put up our Christmas tree!
and the crowning glory thanks to my creative son:
Category Archives: Celebrate!
Thanksgiving is upon us
So here I sit at 2 in the morning finishing the plan for our small thanksgiving meal. Yes, small and yes we waited til today to get our fixins together. LOL! I never wait this long, but we didn’t get to have a normal Tday last year and this year we aren’t traveling.
So what is on the menu?
Turkey Breast (of course) with my special brine
Stuffing (homemade by someone else)
Mashed Potatoes (homemade by me and dairy free)
Gravy (mine and Campbells)
Mac n Cheese (mine based on a recipe from somewhere else)
Cornbread
Green beans (or broccoli, dunno yet)
Macaroni Salad (also homemade but no by me)
Dessert:
Banana Nilla Wafter Pudding
Sweet Potato Pie (store bought, yes i know it’s not as good as homemade 
)
Pumpkin Bread or cupcakes
Cool whip!
Gonna be good for sure. Starting up in 6 hours. Got all my recipes in order and just waiting to pass out so I can rest up for the morning. Looking forward to watching the parade on TV with my babies (husband, son, and inside agent LOL).
Have a blessed thanksgiving everyone!
Good mother’s day
I really enjoyed my mother’s day. Church was nice. We received a book about 12 extraordinary women of the Bible. My son made me a pretty Mother’s Day card with purple rose embellishments *he knows they are my favorite flowers*.
My men took me out to TGI Fridays where I consumed a lovely dinner of chicken and shrimp with creamy mashed potatoes and vanilla bean cheesecake for dessert. My appetizer was the broccoli cheese soup. Our server was super nice. I really liked how personable she was. This is maybe the third restaurant we have been to where they actually treat you like a person and not an annoyance. In ten years, this is the best service I have received… TWO times in a row! Joyful.
Finished off the night watching tv and doing my cross stitch next to my wonderful hubby-bear.
Thank You Jesus for making me the mother of such a wonderful child with such a wonderful man!
When we returned home, I was able to pick up my cross stitch and relax while being served for the rest of the evening by my men. They are so sweet!
Surprise party
I was so happy to be part of the Evangelist Pam Gatke surprise birthday party last night! What a blessed time that was. We also gave a shot out to our son who’s birthday was yesterday, too. Everyone had such great things to say about Evang. Pam. She is such an awe-inspiring woman of faith. We were truly blessed and honored to be part of the celebration. We shared our ministry with the congregation, which was great. We love to share our ministry, our testimonies, and our life with people. It makes living worth while. I know that everyone else had a great time, too. She was truly surprised…had NO clue that the party was going on. Her husband, friends, and family did a phenomenal job 
Building a birthday
My husband is so awesomely great! He decided to get our son what he really wanted: a tv stand. I priced them all over the place and found one that was only 30 dollars (6 dollars to us since we have a gift card). Instead, we went to the local big hardware shop and were blessed to find all the pieces to make the entertainment center for a mere 5 dollars! *with the screws it comes up to about fifteen dollars, but the screws will go further than just this project*. SO Excited about that <3 I am really glad that we were able to find that and a shoe organizer for ten dollars less than it would have cost us to just buy a ready made center…and it’s built with an extra ingredient:
a father’s love!
We are planning to go to the Dr. Seuss reading in our area on Saturday morning. That night we have concert, but I am sure that he will get a lot of out of that. He likes to rap with us. So onward we go building our son’s 8th birthday to be one he won’t forget
Time to confess our latest news
SOOOO the big news is that we moved… We have been gradually settling into our new 2 bedroom apartment *which is the top part of a house* in Long Island. We are still urban missionaries, so this move makes this our *temporary* home. My permanent address is still NJ because I know that we will go back there eventually, and that is where our ministry base is located. Like so many missionaries, the mission field is the place they minister but home stays home no matter what.
We have a lovely master bedroom, a large child’s bedroom, a kitchen, and a living room. There is enough space to put a dining room table, tho there is no official dining room space. We have a bathroom with a shower *no tub* and not quite enough space to put a bathroom vanity, but spacious enough to make it look nice.
We have been here officially for about a week and a half. So far, I have updated the deco here, but we have some serious work to do later on such as replacing countertops and flooring in the kitchen. Hubby is also going to be pulling out paneling in our bedroom and replace it with the beauty of white sheet rock *lol*.
Oh and I heard from the publisher this morning… 2 weeks till I find out whether or not they are publishing my book. I announced that on Facebook already, but this is for all those who are not on facebook
ANNNNND We are both enrolled in NYDSOM .. NY District School of Ministry and will be credentialed with the Assemblies of God by the end of the year!
Keeping All Saints Day holy
There have been a lot of misconceptions as to the truth behind Halloween and where it originated. I am not going to get into the occult and all the things that people already know *or think they know* about Halloween. I want to discuss the truth behind the origins of All Saints Day.
First, let’s deal with the actual meaning of the word Halloween.
The original word for All Saints day was Hallowsmas. Hallows means “saints” and the mas meaning “mass”. Take that meaning and apply it to the word Halloween. Hallows means “saints” once again and “een” is derived from “evening before”. Therefore, you get Halloween actually being the night before Hallowsmas, or the Eve of the Mass of Saints.
All Saints Day is November 1st, followed by All Souls Day on November 2nd. It is a two day celebration set aside for remembering those faithful Christians who have passed on from this life. The day has been celebrated by dressing as your favorite saint and telling their story. Unfortunately, many people believe that this custom derived from cultist backgrounds, which is untrue. The first day it was held was May 13th, which coincided with a Celtic holiday celebrating the malevolent unrested souls of their culture. The date was later changed by Pope Gregory III in order to cut ties to that specific celebration.
Samhein, the celebration that most Christians are worried about, is definitely celebrated on October 31st, but the only reason it coincides at all with the celebration of All Saints Day is due to the Florentine calendar’s holding that the evening begins the next day.
Trick or treating, as it is now, was developed independent of the celebration of the Saints. The children that dressed up as saints and went around to houses were asking for little cakes or treats in exchange for prayers for the dead. Mind you, this is very rooted in Catholicism, where they believe in *or at least they did till very recently* Purgatory. That said, when this practice originated, they believed you could pray a soul out of Purgatory into Heaven.
Yes, many of the customs that we know of now have borrowed from their Celtic roots. This was done as a tactic in order to gain more Celtics into the Kingdom. Unfortunately, this has been a double edged sword which has in many ways sullied the original purpose.
For those of us who would still like to keep All Saints Day in the fashion it was intended, feel free to rid your lives of all things that were celebrated as part of the Celtic tradition. Instead, embrace the truth of the Day of the Saints and the Day of the Souls so that we can continually remember the sacrifices the saints of our past have made for the Kingdom of Christ.
(((as for the jack o lantern… there is an interesting story behind that, too)))
Resources:
Wikipedia
New World Encyclopedia
TLC
American Catholic
History Channel
Happy birthday to me
So yesterday was my birthday *since it’s after midnight i have to call it, right?* … and we decided on this rainy day that we would head over to MD to go to the aquarium. We never got there because we called and found out they were full up, so we watched a movie instead. It was Monsters vs. Aliens, which was mediocre at best. This is after our mediocre lunch at the nasty ghetto Wendys. ICK … and all this in the rain. The rain did finally subside and we headed back home to watch some MMA fights on tv and catch up on emails.
I have to doubly thank everyone who called, emailed, facebooked, myspaced, ninged, texted, or got hold of me somehow to wish me a Happy Birthday. That meant a heaping lot to me.
I also have to thank my buddy Vonnie for giving me a sweet card & some money toward the laptop I want. What a doll! God really has blessed me with some very amazing friends.
Today, I get to be at church and do the tomb scene with my fellow choir goers, get cake at my mom’s house, and have brunch after church. Should be fun!
Thanks again everyone! I LOVE YOU ALLLLL!!!!!!!