Category Archives: Works for Me Wednesday

WFMW – Free Grocery Money

May 27, 2008 KME 5 Comments

Life changes when you go On A Budget. There is both freedom and boundaries. I find it an interesting exercise. It’s difficult to say “no” but I’m extremely grateful that many times all I am saying no to is a shopping whim. We have money for necessities (and some splurges) and God is providing the means to continue paying off our debt.

These thoughts crossed my mind this week:

There’s no money left in the grocery budget so I’m NOT going to stop at the produce market on the way home, even though I’m all alone and could shop there without any kid distractions.
I’m almost out of toilet paper but I can’t afford a Costco run (there’s no money left in the households OR grocery budget). The smaller pack from the grocery store (on sale) will do fine.
Who’s paying for THAT unexpected little purchase?
I wonder if we could ride our bikes to the grocery store or walk and pull a wagon. Save money AND sneak in a workout – perfect!

Is Miriam offering to pay?

None of these are Momentous Thoughts that will save us hundreds of dollars in our budget. They are, however, little baby steps that reveal a gradual shift in my thinking. A move, I hope, away from “I want = I put on credit.” It’s difficult and I can definitely see why Dave Ramsey insists a truly effective Money Makeover must begin in the heart.

What Works for Me this month is using some of our tax stimulus refund to take advantage of our grocery store’s free money giveaway. Gift cards purchased at Albertsons are granted an additional 10%. A $300 gift card to Albertsons was credited to us as $330. A free $30 to a store we shop weekly. What a fantastic deal!

Here is a list of some other retailers participating in similar offers.

Anyone else using some of their tax money in this way?

Kathy – visit Shannon in Rocks in My Dryer for other Works for Me Wednesday posts.

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A Haven of Order

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Books, Project 366, Works for Me Wednesday

WFMW – Devotional Books for Boys

May 20, 2008 KME 10 Comments

Let’s chat about some great devotional books our family has enjoyed. I LOVE character study books. I have seen my children grow in their faith and understanding of how the scriptures apply to their lives on a real and meaningful basis through the books and stories we have read over the years.

This is one of my favorite topics and I am passionate about intentionally providing excellent devotional books for the children. I wrote about some of our choices for the younger ages in an earlier WFMW post. This evening I went through my shelves and realized I have several books that are especially appealing to boys. That said, I must note that with five children (two of whom are girls) it is imperative that our reading is accessible to both the male and female listeners. These books have been enjoyed by the girls and boys alike in our family.

Now I share them with you.

Devotional Books for Boys

The Power of One by Ron Luce. The edition I have is a gift book. Amazon links to a new one that is being published in July.

This is a powerful book full of personal stories of teens who face real instances of peer pressure. Very inspiring. I am definitely going to look for additional books by Ron Luce. Luce is the President and Founder of Teen Mania Ministries, a Christian youth organization that reaches millions of young people worldwide.

Tiger and Tom (and other stories for boys) by J. E. White. I found this little treasure at a curriculum sale one year. The stories were originally gathered from church papers in the 1870′s and many of them powerfully illustrate the consequences of sinful life choices.

What do I do now, Lord by Chris Jones. This book was in a big box of library cast offs. Always looking to connect with my active boys, I immediately grabbed this when I saw the sub title: Devotions for Boys. Each of the individual stories feature a young boy facing real-life problems — fears, friends, bullies, getting along with parents – and end with a scripture and prayer. I read this to Joshua (age 14) years ago and recently picked it up to read to Daniel (age 11). It’s perfect for the pre-teen (or younger) boy.

Her Mother’s Bible & Hedge Fence The Golden Text Series by Isabella Alden. This is another collection that was written in the 1800′s. In each story a young boy reads a portion of scripture that has been highlighted by his grandmother. God teaches him what the verse means and how it should be applied to his life. It was moving to see how his understanding of scripture grew through out the book. A classic.

Building of the Rock five book devotional series. Joel Beeke and Diana Kleyn have taken a selection of real life incidents and fictional narratives and developed them into a series of devotional books for children aged 7-12. We devoured all five of these books and were eager for more. The stories include a mixture of historical adventure, childhood experiences, remarkable instances of conversion and dramatic, rescues from danger. There is a question and scripture reference at the end of each story.

How God Used a Thunderstorm
How God Stopped the Pirates
How God Used a Snowdrift
How God Used a Drought and an Umbrella
How God Sent a Dog to Save a Family

There you have it, just a few of our favorites. If you have a devotional book that your family loves, please leave a comment. Amazon is just a few clicks away and I am always eager to build our faith/life lessons library.

Stop by Rocks in My Dryer for other Works for Me Wednesday posts.

Kathy
Project 366 – Day 141

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WFMW - Diet and Exercise

91 Days of Ramsey

Blogs & Websites, Movies, Works for Me Wednesday

WMFW – Movie Info

May 13, 2008 KME 10 Comments

I love movies! I love the thrill of being lost in a fantastic story, putting up my feet, digging into a big bowl of popcorn and being swept away into another time or place.

As a Christian family, we try to be discerning and wise in our movie viewing (not an easy thing these days). Here are some resources we use in previewing and monitoring our movie choice:

Plugged In - run by Focus on the Family, this is a Christian review site. Profanity, sexual content, violence, and religious themes are all clearly outlined.

Screen It – another “spoiler” type review website. Unlike Plugged In, this is not a Christian based site. It is geared toward parents, however, and does an excellent job of detailing the specific content of the movie. There is a separate section where the author rates the movie (on a 1 to 10 scale). Although he is not filtering through a Biblical world view, I often find the movie critique to be insightful.

If the children are going to watch a movie they have to pay a “chip.” Daniel and David encourage Sarah to pay as often as possible. They even occasionally let her actually select the movie. That’s big brothers for you.

IMDB (International Movie Database) – the mother of all movie websites. It has every movie, actor, director, etc every made in it’s database. This is the place to research movies, cross reference composers, or just plain track down the answer to that illusive question.

“Who was that guy who played in that movie with the other girl? You know, the one where she kisses him at the end?”

If you can figure out even one little piece of the puzzle – the name of the movie, one of the actors, even the year in which it was made – you can unravel the mystery and connect the movie dots. This has brought much peace in our household. Tim has resigned himself to my OCD need to place actors into proper movie context.

“Tim,” I’ll say in the middle of a movie. “Do you recognize that character? Yes, the cashier. Do you think he’s the same guy who played the teacher in the comedy we saw last week?”

Poor guy. He doesn’t even pause. After all, the “movie itch” isn’t going to go away. I must know.

“Why don’t you go check IMDB and see. I can wait.” Of course, that’s code for ‘I’ll be playing my computer game while you get online. Call me when you’ve figured it out.’

For movie trivia, you can’t get any better than IMDB. You can also find trailers and links to other external reviews.

Yahoo Movie Listings – I keep this site bookmarked because it links automatically to my zip code and will list all the theaters in my area, complete with showing times, movie info and maps.

Coming Soon Trailers – proceed with caution. This site collects the newest trailers as they are released. We don’t have a tv and rarely go to the theater, so if we do see a movie preview, it’s usually online. I ignore all the “junk” or questionable movies, and enjoy the fun ones. Although they do include children’s films as they are released, this is definitely not a site for kids to visit unsupervised.

These buddies stick together.

ClearPlay – a dvd player that offers filtering options. We purchased ours at Target last year but they have since stopped carrying them. Basically you purchase a subscription to the filters (which are accessed online), load them on to a USB stick and then plug the stick into the dvd player. The ClearPlay DVD player recognizes the filter and applies them to your copy of the movie. Profanity, violence and inappropriate sexual scenes are either edited or skipped. Recently we had some trouble with the audio portion of our player (purchased in November 2007), ClearPlay paid for our shipping and is mailing us a new DVD player free of charge.

If you have a movie resource that your family recommends, please leave a comment. I’d love to hear about it.

Visit Rocks in My Dryer for other Works For Me Wednesday tips.

Keep your eyes open for Fireproof, the newest movie produced by the makers of Facing the Giants, coming out in the fall of 2008. Check out the trailer! Looks powerful.

Kathy

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Photography, Project 366, Works for Me Wednesday

WFMW – Photography Lessons

May 6, 2008 KME 13 Comments

Lest the title of this blog mislead readers, I should inform you that this week at Rocks in My Dryer, Shannon is hosting What DOESN’T Work for Me. Hearing the week’s theme, I hemmed and hawed, trying to think of something to post. Obviously my life is too full of glorious success stories to come up with something that doesn’t work. I was completely stumped.

Or maybe the list of possibilities was just too long.
And pathetic.

Dying houseplants, lawn full of weeds, eternally messy home (bless it’s heart and hearth), arguing children, jeans fitting a little too snugly, cereal for dinner (again).

It was all a bit depressing. Plus, who wants to read about those dreadful topics? I decided to forget the Works for Me Wednesday post and instead download the day’s pictures. As I scrolled through my shots, I immediately recognized the subject for the day’s post.

That fancy aperture setting didn’t quite capture the “look” I was going for.

Photography.

More specifically, self-taught photography. Tim bought me a wonderful camera for Christmas, the Nikon D40X. It’s a digital SLR, comes with two lenses and takes incredible pictures.

Great pictures unless you try to mess with the manual settings and end up in the dark.

If only I could figure out how to use it. Beyond my two favorite settings, that is – auto and flash off. Yep, I end up taking most of my pictures either in auto mode (which tends to mean “flash”) and flash off (for my outside, brighter lit pictures).

Today I pulled out my Nikon D40/D40x Digital Field Guide by David D. Busch. It’s a beautiful book with full-color illustrations, detailed instructions and chapters full of information.

I still don’t get it. I get lost in ISO settings, aperture and f/stops. Oh, I understand the concepts, it’s the application that trip me. Undeterred by past failures (I’m nothing if not an optimist – it usually Works For Me. Har, har.)

I went outside, book in one hand, tripod in the other and my camera around my neck. I tried, really I did, to change my settings and experiment with the manual features.

Even this picture taken on the Children setting looks a bit ‘off’ to me.

It wasn’t pretty. I guess, until I can get some professional help (HEY, I heard that snort!), I’ll stick to my basic settings and continue my study of Photoshop. A little photo-editing goes a LONG way.

If this exercise in voyeuristic failure viewing appealed to your dark sense of humor, please by all means, visit Rocks in My Dryer and check out what else doesn’t work for people.

Kathy
Project 366 – Day 127

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WFMW - A Smattering of Thoughts

Events, Works for Me Wednesday

WFMW – How to Plan a Women’s Retreat

April 29, 2008 KME 10 Comments

Our church hosted its women’s retreat this month. I was blessed, as I have the past few years, to be a part of the steering committee.

Some time ago a friend asked if I would post a How – To blog on planning a women’s retreat. I thought it was a wonderful idea and convinced my dear friend, Nancy, to be a guest blogger. Nancy has served as the Women’s Ministry Director at our church for the past 7 years. It’s been such a blessing to get to know her and see her passion for the women of our church. She truly and sincerely wants them to grow in their spiritual walk and commitment.

Retreat Planning 101
By Nancy

So you want to know how to plan a Women’s Retreat? It is actually very simple…here is the secret: Pray!

That’s it, well, that is the priority, beyond that build a great team of women to work alongside you. Find women that are excited about your retreat, that love the Lord and want to see women draw close to Him.

Here are some bullet points that may help you on your adventure:

Pray

Always begin with this. The Lord knows what the women need during this season, ask Him what it is. Pray that He will help direct the steps of the planning. Pray that He will guide you to the women He wants involved in the retreat.

Share with a small group of women that are also passionate about designing a women’s retreat and see what God has been teaching you. Often the Lord uses these lessons as a spring board for the retreat.
Location and speaker
After forming the core steering committee, the most immediate attention needs to be placed on selecting a location and speaker. We typically have between 80-100 women in attendance so we have certain logistical needs to consider when picking a facility. In our area retreat spots book fast, so we often make this decision 10 to 12 months in advance. This year for the first time we went to a hotel!
Coordinating Team
In the past, we had one coordinator that oversaw all the retreat committees. She would choose a co-coordinator that would be in training for the next year. Lately we’ve found having three or four women as part of a steering team to be less burdensome and more fun! Each of these women oversees separate committees.
Form committees based on your needs
Here is a sample of some of ours:

Prayer team
Hospitality
Decorating team
Registration
Finance
Worship
Give-a-ways
Mixers
Free time activities
Speaker hostess
Photographer
Nurse
Publicity
Snacks
Follow up

Of course this is not an exhaustive list! Although you might be exhausted just reading it.

Our giveaways team came up with a tremendous amount of prizes and gifts to share with the ladies over the weekend.

Clear communication is also very important. You can use e-mail, phone calls, meetings, letters etc, just make sure everyone has clear expectations. We have written job descriptions so each committee head knows her responsibilities.
Plan an agenda for the weekend
Have a timeline and put in meals, speaker times, small groups, free time etc. Build in some extra time between meeting times to allow God to work in His own way. It is okay to deviate from the schedule as the Holy Spirit prompts. It is also important though to know where you are headed, confusion over scheduling can be very distracting to the women.
Meetings
We open the first meeting up to all the women of the church, asking for people to come and be a part of our planning session. The steering committee has already divided the responsibilities and are ready to form their core teams. Some women come forth out of their own initiative and others are asked (invited, cajoled) to help.

We usually have about 8-10 meetings before the retreat with all the committee leaders and steering team. We pray, share requests and needs and discuss the planning and progress of each area. By this time, we’ve come up with a topic, theme and core Bible verse.

Meetings keep everyone on track.

Additional Activities
Here is a collection of some of the things we’ve done at retreats, either during free time or as part of the presentation. Each year looks different, you can’t “do it all”, so pick what personally suits the women of your church.

Mug exchange
Pedicures
Crafts
Karaoke
Massages
Prayer walks
Aerobics
Personal testimonies from women in our church
Break out sessions on specific topics (marriage, parenting, Bible study helps)
Board games and puzzles
Sign language
Outdoor activities/sports
PowerPoint presentations
Registration
This is a significant area of management. It can be difficult to keeping track of payments, special needs and rooming assignments. Pick someone with great administrative skills. Have all payments made before the retreat. We provide scholarship money for women that can not afford the cost of the retreat. It was been a joy to see God provide just what we need.
Set up
The retreat committee generally arrives about 3 hours before the rest of the women to decorate, put out name tags, check rooming assignments and be personally prepared to greet the women. Be careful not to be distracted with the small stuff as the women arrive. Many of them are completely scared and uncomfortable!

Our theme this year was The Amazing Race. The decorations were definitely amazing!

Notebook
We have fun creating a notebook for the weekend. Included in it is the retreat committee teams, the agenda for the weekend, notes for the speaker’s sessions, a quiet time devotional, small group questions, songs and even a phone/email address list of each attendee. Our worship leader is a gifted songwriter and each year pens a song especially for the year’s retreat.
More Prayer
The retreat team is careful to build in time, during the retreat, for prayer. We gather with the speaker, worship leader and steering team to pray before each session. Often God reveals to us there, any changes that are necessary.

Make sure you are available to “be present” with the women. We can physically show up to hang out with the women, but our minds can be on the next meeting or in problem solving mode. They need you, all of you!

Thank you’s of course are important at the end of a meeting. Mainly, of course, God gets all the glory!

Our speaker, Judy Gerry, brought a collection of her books to share with the retreat attendees.

Follow up
Often this is difficult. You will be tired. Some women will still want to connect or may have shared a struggle and will need further attention. Know counselors in your area, be alert to “signals” some women may send out, indicating their need for further help. One year we hosted a party for the committee the week after the retreat to say thank you. Another time we had a “reunion” for the women who attended the retreat. Again, make this about what your women need.

Have fun! Did I mention you need to pray? I can’t emphasize that enough. It is an absolute blessing to see God work in very specific and awesome ways. He speaks to each of us so personally, let the women share their stories….it is amazing!

There you go…some ramblings from a retreat junkie. My very first one, I was one of those scared, reluctant girls who only came because someone personally invited me and offered to room with me. I am now hooked! It is hard work and exhausting and completely worth it. Have fun and may God bless you beyond all your expectations!

Love, Nancy