It's My Job to Make My Marriage Better

Have you ever had one of those days when you’re struggling with a problem, then you receive some sort of uplifting message that pertains to your problem?  Like it’s a direct message from God?  I had one of those the other day.


I was struggling with some issues about being a wife.  To put it easier and make this much shorter, I was being selfish.  While sitting in my own selfishness, and having a pity party on my own, I checked my emails.


As a Gabby Mom, I do reviews for them and part of my review for February was to read a weekly newsletter that I receive every Thursday from Encouraging Moments (formerly TEACH Magazine) I checked me email and wouldn’t you know it?  The subject was on being happy in your marriage.  This quote by Lorrie Flem caught me, and I had to admit my guilt to myself and God:

“Marriage isn’t supposed to make you happy.  It’s supposed to make you married.  It’s your job to make your marriage happy and satisfying.”

That opened my eyes right then and there.  Then I told myself, there must be a reason that God wants me to read these weekly newsletters.  

Lorrie has nice little sales that she includes at the end of her letter for shopping at the store at http://www.homemakingwithteach.com/ with great bargains.  Under Lorrie’s letter is also more information available on different subjects.  Drastic Discounts where there is an offer for something reduced from the store and On Facebook This Week includes a quote that Lorrie said this past week along with a follower of Lorrie responding!  You can also find out how to meet Lorrie in person, order the magazine Eternal Encouragement Magazine  and a Timely Tip.  

But the best part to me was Chick Flicks for Mom that takes you to videos that Lorrie has made and posted on different subjects.  Here you can watch videos with helpful information and priceless advice and ideas from Lorrie on the subjects Children, Godly Moms, Godly Wives and Godly Women.  Definitely looks like the perfect site to gain support and ideas for homemaking, being a good mom and good parenting.  But first,  I chose the Godly Wives to see what treasure of advice Lorrie had for me to use now with my marriage.



I found this video, Undergirding Your Husband and thanked God for being led to this.  This is information that I know, but I often forget ignore.  I try so hard to be a good and Godly wife.  But I am a human and I fail.  I get selfish and often respond with, “I don’t deserve this”.  That is not Godly!  That iw the wrong attitude to take.  If you ever find yourself feeling that way, you should watch this video!

Maybe there is a message out there that God is trying to give to you.  If you’d like to receive these emails every Thursday from Lorrie, click here and sign up to receive the email newsletter.  

I am reviewing Encouraging Moments as an official member of The Gabby Moms blogging program for Eternal Encouragement magazine.  I did not receive compensation for this post and all opinions are solely my own.

Correction on Previous Post

I just wanted to let everyone know that I had made left out crucial information on my blog post about the review for TEACHMagazine.  First, I would like to state that they are no longer TEACHMagazine, it is now Eternal Encouragement.Magazine. 

The second thing that I did change in my blog post was that I was mistaken about how to order the book, and now I have given the correct information.  And there is even a coupon code added to order the book $4 cheaper than those who don't read a GabbyMom review blog.

The blog post is here.  Thanks for your patience and understanding!

Homeschool Blogging Catch Up

The last week that we did in homeschool covered the water cycle in Science.  We read a couple of books on that along with some Bible verses that said a little about it also.  They totally understood this and even knew most of it before I started to teach them. 
I think the best things that happened while I wasn't able to blog about them was the week that the kids got to choose what they would study that week.  I gave each of them a list of 3 things that they could choose from to learn and do some sort of project on.  Bubba chose trapping and snaring and Stinky chose sewing. 
Stinky and I went to Michael's craft store and picked out a simple little unicorn picture that she could learn to sew with. 
Bubba got to do his with his dad.  They had built a fort in Greg's living room to hide under while they had rigged up a tub to show him how to trap animals.  They both had quite a bit of fun doing this project.  Bubba took what he learned and played with his dolls after that trying to trap them. 
Here are the books that we read for this school week:

Homeschool Week I Have No Idea

Since I lost my computer for about a month or so, I didn't get a chance to keep up with my homeschooling weeks.  But we really haven't done that much reading in that amount of time because we haven't been doing as much reading.  This is a list that I was able to make but I wasn't able to transfer the list to my blog.  I just love these Amazon widgets:



For this particular week in school, we were learning about air for science.  We read a few books that explained it quite well.  The kids understood what I expected of them.
We were studying the Phoenicians during this time in our history. 

The Gabby Mom Mission #1 *EDITED*

My first mission as a Gabby Mom was to read and review the book called True Treasures: Ten Years of TEACH Magazine presented by Mrs. Lorrie Flem.  Lorrie felt led by the Lord to put this collaboration together of articles written in TEACH Magazine by some of their best authors.  Lorrie’s own mother was a large part of the TEACH team for many years.

The book was split into 6 different chapters that touched on each area of importance in a Christian woman’s life.  

In the first chapter called Jewels That Make the Heart Sparkle I read a great piece by Mrs. Lorrie Flem called His Wheel = His Will.  This brought to me a wonderful reminder that we are the clay and we can not form ourselves.  Therefore, we need God’s loving, masterful hands to fix the problems that we face in ourselves.  We can not change ourselves, but He can.

There are chapters that cover marriage, parenting, homemaking,k homeschooling and godly living.  I kept notes while I was reading each article and came out with 2 pages of notes that have combined information from all of the chapters!  One of my favorites that I wrote down to keep note of for myself is Bible Verses to Pray for Your Children by Author Unknown.

I also found some useful and inspiring quotes in True Treasures.  Two of my favorite are both said by Lorrie Flem.  “Satan is thrilled when we think of our jobs as a never-completed to-do list.  He wants us to feel trapped in our roles, defeated; and unable to see beyond today.  But, as always, God has a different opinion.  In I Kings 17:17, God calls us ‘the mistress of the house’ and the Hebrew word for mistress means to be master or to have dominion over.  You are in charge of your home.  This is an awesome responsibility, because your job is to make your home a little picture of God’s big picture.”  Doesn’t that just put it into perspective?

If you are interested in reading this Godly collection of writings from inspiring women, please check out www.HomemakingWithTEACH.com and order True Treasures today for only $19.95!  And as a reader of A Peek Inside, you can use this coupon code GabbyMom and you can get $4 off! That coupon code is good until the end of May.  There is something for all of us included!  Be ready to do some heart searching and praying about the ways that you can bring God into your family life even more than you do now!

I received this product for honest review from TEACH Magazine as a part of The Gabby Moms blogging program.  All opinions expressed are solely my own.

Homeschool Week 8

This was a great week in homeschool.  It was fun!  Our topics this week were Judges/Ruth/Hannah in Bible; we finished our Egypt study in History; Science this week was all about weather; and Stinky had her first spelling test.
I have worksheets that I bought from Currclick.com that has Bio pages for almost every person in the Bible.  This week they did a bio page on Samson and Ruth & Naomi.  They also have different coloring pages that I print out for them if the Bible reading doesn't have something else for me to put with it.
I believe that we have finished all of the history of Egypt that we will be learning about.  We are sad to see them go.  This week we finished reading some books that we wanted to read from Hatshepsut and Tutankhamen last week and then we started Moses and the Israelites leaving Egypt during the Exodus.
For Science this week we learned about weather.  I gave the kids a weather chart to keep track of weather in different places for the week so that they could see the difference in temperatures at different places.  On Wednesday we did a rain experiment to make our own rain.  It was very simple and we all enjoyed it.  First you need a mason jar with a lid.  Boil some water and let it cool for just a bit.  Pour it into the jar.  I found it worked best at about 3/4-1/2 full.  Put the lid on the jar upside down and put ice cubes in the upside jar lid.  Then watch the rain inside the jar!  It was neat!
We finished reading Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume this week.  Somehow we missed one day of reading it this week.  I wanted to finish it this week and my plan was to read the last chapter on Saturday.  The chapters were sorta long, I thought.  Not really longer than Charlotte's Web though I guess.  But when I finished reading chapter 9 on Friday, both kids wanted me to finish the book by reading the next chapter!  So they sat through about 30-35 pages!  But they LOVED that story!
Math is the same every week.  They work on 2 pages in their workbooks.  They learn various skills in that book and I explain and teach as we go through it.
Bubba is just about ready to start learning the sounds of his letters.  There are just a handful of small letters that he doesn't quite have down yet.  But I'm thinking that he knows enough of them that we might just start this week!  And I read a story to Bubba for our reading time together each week along with practicing his AWANA verses for each week.  This week we practiced 2 because they were so short.  You really need to do more than one per week to finish the book in time.  And I want to be able to get him the other workbook after he finishes this one.
Stinky and I read a chapter in a chapter book together.  Right now we are reading Plum Fantastic by Whoopi Goldberg.  This is a book that Stinky picked out to buy quite a while ago because it was ballet.  I don't care for the book myself, but Stinky likes it.  We read alternating pages.  The page on my side is what I read and the page on her side is what she reads.  We enjoy this so much!  This was her first week doing spelling.  It was really my fault for waiting so long, but I didn't ever make a list!  lol  I need spelling curriculum I think.  She is supposed to do a Reading Power from our Hooked on Phonics box, read a chapter in her Bible (Read and Learn Bible) and work on her language arts worksheets by herself everyday.  And now that includes practicing her spelling words.  Then she either works on her AWANA alone or I help her.
And without further ado, here is the books that we read this week:








The only book that I could not get to show up on there was a book called My First Bible Stories by Creative Publishing that Bubba wanted me to read to him, since his big sister reads her Bible everyday.  And so does Mom.  So we read this over 3 days I think.  I better get him a new Bible for himself.  This one is a board book and for younger folks.  And pretty old and torn up!
This week on our learning list: Thanksgiving, Samuel and reading Mummies in the Morning by Mary Pope Osborne.  School is easy this week.  We are going to combine Social Studies and History this week with Thanksgiving.  I'll give a crash course on the Pilgrims since we aren't that far in History yet.  It is an easy school week. 
And next week we are on Thanksgiving Break! 

Homeschool Week 7

This week in school we studied life cycles, Middle and Late Kingdoms of Egypt, Judges in the Bible and we started reading Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume.  Both of the kids LOVE this book!  They don't care when the chapters are long.  They just want to hear what is going to happen next.  I also know that my hubby is listening in because he loves this book.
We all really enjoy learning about Egypt.  I think it seems so exotic and mysterious that it just draws us in.  This is just a fun time to learn about!
We covered life cycles in general, what it meant. Then I went into a frog's life cycle, a chicken's life cycle, a plant's life cycle and a bee's life cycle.  The kids liked learning this Science subject too.  I am saving a water cycle for another time in Science class. 
Some of our books that we read were left overs from past History because we had to wait to get them from the library. Here is what we read this week:

and these:
Rimonah of the Flashing Sword by Eric A. Kimmel











Callie Cat, Ice Skater by Eileen Spinelli