Jill reminded me that I didn't tell you when my birthday is. Nope, I wasn't hatched out of an egg either ~ I came into this world screaming on May 15, 1968. Nothing has been the same for my brother (4 years older) since. :O)

I know you weren't all hatched from eggs!

Hello wonderful friends. I don't believe in New Years Resolutions but do believe in change. One thing the Lord has laid on my heart is to be more deliberately personal in my relationships. That sounds scary, huh? Being slightly type A I can get so "task focused" & preoccupied that I am not taking time to be relational. I would like to begin by simply knowing & acknowledging birthdays. I know you all have them...I just don't know when they are. You don't have to include the year if you don't want to but remember I am 40 now so nothing fazes me.

For you formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother's womb.

I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

Marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well.

My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret,

and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.

Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.

And in Your book they all were written,

The days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them.

I just want to celebrate when you were formed with you! As for the changing and growing isn't it encouraging to know:

Being confident of this very thing:

He who began a good work in me will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.

Philippians 1:6

Hello everyone! Tomorrow is the first day of the Oleson school year. I have a 9th grader & a 5th - 6th grader. I love back to school and have been in my school room arranging books, sharpening pencils and watching the clock tick~for weeks. I am ready for tomorrow. My kids however are not nearly as excited. I wish you could've seen the look on Kayla's face when I told her there will be no internet until school is completed for the day....priceless. I bet that shows up on her blog. I love homeschooling and getting to make choices in curriculum [thank you so much to the many friends who so patiently listen to me talk out my decisions and lovingly advise me] and partner with my children in their education. Each year gets more and more fun.

Tomorrow morning I am going to put on my denim jumper (Ha, Ha), pray hard, make a special breakfast, and hit the classroom. It's time for another adventure in schooling to begin.:0)

Please pray for those I love

Hi everyone! I am having so much fun with this blogspot it isn't funny. How come no one told me to blog before....just kidding! I can hear the "Arrgghhhs" from here. I am trying to figure out how to post prayer requests in a certain spot on my blog template but until then I wanted to ask you for 2 specific prayers. My cousin Jimmy (early 30s...kids 16, 10, 8mo. & his 2nd wife has left him) has terminal cancer and is "tired of people wanting to talk to me about my soul". He is not a believer and yet without excuse. Please pray for a softened heart. My mom claims to be a believer but neither Kayla or I who have witnessed to her a lot believe it. We just have never had a peace about it and there is no fruit. She occassionaly talks about "handing things over to a higher power" and that doesn't sound like someone who has a personal relationship with Jesus to me. Anyway, she is going through a lot right now with her step-daughter (really horrible stuff that I may blog about in the future), my grandma & her husband who are in assisted living, her sister who is a recent widow, and her husbands brother who is in his last stages of cancer. Life stinks bad right now and I don't know how to help or encourage her. LORD Jesus I thank you for the privilege of coming before your throne and for the support of sisters in Christ. We truly are ONE in the bond of love.

I would love to lift up you and those you love also...please feel free to leave me requests any time.

She went there!

Good morning blogging buddies. Can you believe the nerve of some people. I was reading a devotion this morning and Anne Grahm Lotz asked two very intrusive and uncomfortable questions.
1. RE: Genesis 4:16 & Cain having to leave the presence of God because he wouldn't
confess & be cleansed and therefore experiencing the consequence through many
generations. "What sin in your life - if left unchecked - will ravage the life
of your children?"

2. RE: Revelation 5:13 & the praise of Jesus by EVERYONE @ the end of the age.
"So, who is praising Christ because you are?"

There goes God getting into my business again. OUCH. I have been enjoying camping in Psalm 19 this week...so full of the glory of God and His Word. And I do truly pray vs. 14 (see top of blog) often, but now it looks like I need to go back to the wheel and submit to the hands of the Potter today because those questions were show stoppers for me. Pray for me :)

Not What I Thought It Would Be

Do you ever "pre-blog" in your mind? I had a Weds morning blog all planned called "The Word & The World" because Tuesday AM was going to be spent at a Bible Study Fellowship Leader's Workshop and my PM was going to be spent at the fair. I knew that the workshop would include training and time in the Word (we are studying the life of Moses this year!!!) and I assumed that my time at the fair would be all about the world and I was kind-of dreading it. My kiddos wanted to enter some projects this year so we filled out the forms and then they procrastinated on actually putting their projects together. Daddy saved the day at the last minute (Sat.) and I took them Sun afternoon to turn them in. So....we had to go and see if they won a ribbon right? We had plans with our neighbor to go and practice our Spanish by naming all the farm animals etc. I was pleasantly surprised with the weather, the lack of crowds & clean fair grounds (note to self: Tues afternoon is an excellent time to go to the fair),we ran into a ton of home school families, had lots of hugs and fun, enjoyed our day with our neighbor very much AND both kids won blue ribbons (you'll have to ask them about their projects). So, I've learned to not pre-judge and pre-blog and to expect God to surprise me with joy!!! Not bad for only Weds.

So, I read Kim's blog and now I need to go plan some gourmet meals because I feel horribly inferior...I didn't see hot dogs or mac-n-cheese anywhere on her list.

Love ya girl friends!!!

Yuk! and my pet snake

Hi everyone, it is a sunny Saturday and I am sick in bed. Like Jill, my husband shared his summer cold and I am feeling really crummy. All I can think about in my usual type A personality is my busy schedule next week....who cares! So anyway, I wanted to tell you about my pet snake. When we moved from our previous house in a much more rural neighborhood I never dreamed we would be moving to the snake capital of the world (as you get to know me you'll discover my propensity to exaggerate A LOT). But honestly we have seen several snakes in and around our yard every summer. I am really grossed out by any snake and can't even look at pictures of them...but apparently seeing them all the time breeds familiarity. The other night we came home late from family reunion in Moses Lake and a bull snake was stretched almost clear across our driveway. I slammed on the brakes, waking everyone else in the car up, and just stared at it. Then I drove around it and calmly parked the car. Very mature of me I thought. We are pretty sure it's the same guy (telling the sex of a snake is beyond me and too horrible to imagine) who traipsed across our driveway, through our fence, through the grass, through the other fence and into the garden on the canal like he owned the place. We have since seen him again in the driveway so we decided he is our pet and named him Gopher in hopes that he will eat some. I have struck up a deal with him...he can hang out in our driveway as long as 1. he doesn't park himself between me & my car and 2. I never see a bunny sized bump in his belly. He is welcome to enjoy a buffet of mice, gophers & rattlesnakes (yes we have those too, in fact my neighbor is pretty sure she has a nest of baby rattlers under her back deck-yuk!) but my wonderful, beloved cottontail bunnies are off limits! That is the story of my pet snake. I will post some other time about the coyotes that we see all the time and I am convinced are just biding their time until they can eat my dog. I really need more to do!

Thanks for listening! I am not a very good sick person so my family is avoiding me and I'm lonely.

Hugs to you all!
Leslie

A Lurker No More

Hi Girl Friends! I am officially a blogger now. Like my name? So spiritual. Not that I succumbed to peer pressure but I wanted to get into the fun and since Lori hasn't blogged in over 5 weeks I thought I'd better fill in the gap! Since you guys have gotten me excited about blogging and Kayla began hers, I keep these running blogs in my mind and now I can write them down, send them out into cyberspace and even if no one ever reads them it's all good!!!

Love all of you and look forward to being part of the popular crowd. I just spell checked my blog...is that uncool?