Catchin' Up

Well, it's been a while since the last post. The reason? No more internet at our house for now. I'm only able to get on every once in a while when I go to the base library. So, to catch up from last time...

I actually DID get some things done from that list I posted last week! I cleaned up all the closets except the entry way closet (which is always in a state of disarray), and got it all organized. It only took a day. Not even that because I was able to do other household chores as well. I also began to learn how to crochet. I discovered it's actually very easy to remember all the stitches, how to turn your work, and such things as that, but I'm struggling with keeping my tension even. Every attempt I've made so far at making a scarf has been ditched, because it starts looking more like a triangle than a rectangle when I've worked several rows. Very frustrating. But I have one lesson left, hopefully she'll be able to show me strategies on keeping my tension even.

Last week was quite interesting. Many states in the lower 48 stay home from work and school because of a snow storm. Alaska apparently shuts down when there's RAIN. Last Monday, I was going to take the car for the day to go grocery shopping for Thanksgiving, so I went to work with Scott and took the car from there. On the way towards the base gate, I hit a patch of ice and spun out. It was scary. I already don't like driving, but driving on very slippery, rainy ice is much worse. Praise God I didn't hit anyone, or even end up in the ditch (as many other cars were doing) although I almost set a whole line of cars swerving and spinning. I managed to get home after driving 35 mph on the highway all the way there, and decided it would not be wise to attempt driving again for the day. Fortunately, at about 11:00, Scott told me he was on his way home, and he ended up staying home for the whole Thanksgiving week! Definitely something to be thankful for. :) Everything shut down (except, fortunately, grocery stores) and it ended up being a great week.

Thanksgiving was very enjoyable. The house was all clean, I'd prepared most of the dishes the day before, and the house smelled good with the cooking turkey. It was my first one and it actually turned out very well! Thanks, Mom, and other ladies out here for all their tips. We had another couple over and enjoyed fellowship, homemade pies, English tea, Mexican train, and a movie. All in all, a wonderful first Thanksgiving as a married couple. We have so much to be grateful for.

And that sums up the week and brings me to today. I must comment again on the weather. It is now -16 degrees outside. I made the discovery that touching metal with your bare hands in that kind of cold is NOT a good idea. Everything hurt when I touched it for a while after that. And my thumb is all red and blotchy now and was stinging for a while. I think I've FINALLY learned my lesson about always having gloves handy. Also, every time I walk outside, my nose hairs curl, I feel like sneezing or coughing when I breathe that air in, and I also get a brain freeze just by walking for a few minutes. It's very entertaining. :)

That's it for now, nothing deep or reaching, just daily life for the Mathews family in Alaska.

All for His glory,
Erin

Blessing of house work

I am blessed with the ability to be a mom and housewife. I don't need to work outside the home. I can focus on family and home and bringing in income can take a very second role to that. I must remind myself of this often. It is a blessing when the sink is full, the laundry needs to be done, the floors need swept (and mopped!), the carpets need vacuumed and toys are strewn everywhere. Our house is LIVED in. Our house is where we show our love. Where dishes get ignored for dancing with a silly girl. Where those same dishes get done late by a loving husband who lets his wife rest. Where Daisy and I do laundry together even though it takes longer with her help.

Yes it's work to keep up with it all. Yes I often feel a step behind. But these are the moments and days that add up to life. We wouldn't be living if there wasn't house work.

Thanksgiving

I am thankful for many things. The list could go on and on. But Salvation is what I am most grateful for. If other blessings were gone God would still be just as faithful to me. He has taken my heart of stone and replaced it with a heart of flesh. He is making me a new creation so I am able to enjoy the blessings and trials He has given me.

Romans 11:33-36
Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
   How unsearchable his judgments,
   and his paths beyond tracing out!
“Who has known the mind of the Lord?
   Or who has been his counselor?”
“Who has ever given to God,
   that God should repay them?”
For from him and through him and for him are all things.
   To him be the glory forever! Amen.

My mind is just about exploding with things I need or want to accomplish this week and next. It's got me in a very excitable state of mind. On the list of things I need to do:

~Organize all the closets (Ha, and good luck to me with keeping them that way...)
~Post an advertisement for the entertainment center and little tv we don't use anymore
~Organize the spare room
~Research some books for one of my students, she's going to finish her first theory book in a couple weeks
~Come up with a sort of lesson plan for the rest of the girls
~Go through all our papers that are threatening to overflow a drawer and get rid of those we don't need
~Come up with some sort of meal plan (what a novel concept! Planning meals a week ahead of time!)
~Start writing the budget
~Gather recipes for Thanksgiving...NEXT WEEK! AHH!
~Go grocery shopping for said recipes
~Vacuum, sweep, mop all the floors
~Disinfect the counters
~Prepare kitchen for lots of cooking
~Drop books off at the library
~Pick up a package at the post office
~Exercise
~Lose 10 pounds
~Write letters to my grandparents
~Start gathering materials for Christmas gifts
~Start gathering Christmas cards and addresses
~Collect my scattered brain
~Call my grandparents
~Do the laundry
~And... I think that's it. For now.

Things I WANT to do:

~Decorate for Thanksgiving
~Pull out my sewing machine and make a table runner for Thanksgiving dinner
~Decorate for Christmas!
~Make a CHRISTMAS table runner
~Make a cute little fabric snowman
~Go shopping at Value Village for Christmas decorations (Got our first Christmas ornaments there - $.99)
~Learn how to crochet
~Get together with a friend
~Go ice skating
~Play piano
~Go rock climbing
~Get a second job (I think. I'm not sure if I actually WANT to do this, or if I'm just crazy.)
~Pay off the car
~Save up for a Virginia/Washington trip (tickets from Alaska are EXPENSIVE.)
~Get a couch and maybe a loveseat
~Buy a dining room table with chairs (We currently have two normal chairs, and some camping chairs)
~Get a mop
~Hmm. I'm thinking too much about material possessions now. Oops.
~Speaking of material...I'd like some of that, too. I'm eager to try out my sewing machine after it moved from Virginia to Washington to Alaska.
~Learn how to play the cello (just learned how to tune it, and I can play a C scale on it. I suppose that's a start...)
~Have muscles
~Practice bargaining at garage sales with all the recent Dave Ramsey techniques we just learned
~Now my mind is getting up to the realm of the very improbable for at least 6 months if not more (see the furniture I started listing. Oh. And the muscles.), I suppose I'd better quit now. :) 

Also, I'd like to be a fabulous cook. I'm not really there yet either. But my husband isn't starving and he seems to enjoy what I make, so I'm doing alright. And as you can see, the neurons in my brain are firing at the speed of light so this post is very...OH! I'd also like to go horseback riding. On the beach. With Scott. Someday. And someday I'd love to have a Canon T2i and be an amazing photographer and actually make money off of it. Or play in a symphony as the pianist. Also, I'd like to be very humble and selfless and generous with all the money I make with photography and piano. Ok, this is getting to be a waste of YOUR brain cells, I really will stop now. I promise. In two seconds.

And now I definitely need the reminder of...
ALL things for His glory,
~Erin

I must decrease, He must increase

Church was so good today. It can get lonely out here sometimes, being so far away from my parents and not being able to get together with friends out here too often. I greatly enjoy the fellowship with other believers, there are a lot of very godly, wonderful people at our church. Today, our regular chaplain was off, so someone else gave the sermon. What a great encouragement it was!

He began with the familiar passage of Matthew 22:37-38:

37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment."

Have you ever really thought about this verse? Really dug deeper and taken a good look at it, then applied it to yourself? The whole sermon was excellent, and I wish I had remembered the whole thing, but I can't mention everything he said, so I will write on what I learned.

I've thought about love, especially during this past year as I prepared to be married, and I've thought a lot about loving God for quite a long time, but never seemed to really grasp what it means to love Him. I have the unfortunate tendency of leaning heavily on emotion rather than my head, it's gotten me in trouble quite a few times. So, when I think of loving God, I usually associate the word "love" with feelings; with having emotions of longing for God and desire. I've had difficulty finding the line between having zealous emotions and having the pure will power to pursue Him.
One thing that the speaker said was "You become what you think. What is it that you most often think of?" He gave an example of how his wife was always thinking about nursing, wanting to become a nurse. Years later, she graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing, and practiced it for 30 years. He then went on to say that if your thoughts are constantly on God, and on how to love Him, serve Him, please Him, that is who you will become. It really made me ponder. What do I usually think on? I want to please God, but is it REALLY the foremost thing in my thoughts? I don't think it is. It convicted me, and inspired me at the same time. Now I think I really do understand how to love God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. On a side note, I've also learned from experience that feelings follow thoughts. If I will myself to devote all of my time, thoughts, attention on Him, it must follow that I will begin to feel longing and desire for Him.

Another thing I got from this message was this: you can glorify God in ANYTHING you do. (Unless it's sin of course.) This means that all the menial things I do every day - scrubbing the toilet, organizing, vacuuming, doing the dishes, sweeping the floor, exercising, listening to music, singing - can be used for God's glory. I knew this before, but it was such a refreshing reminder. Lately I've struggled with feeling worthless, like I need to do big, important things to be a worthwhile human being. I feel tied down sometimes, wanting to travel the world, get a college degree, get a big career even, just something to make me feel as though I am worth something. But I am reminded now that I can do anything for His glory, and that is my chief end. I must decrease, and He must increase. Nothing could be more worthwhile.

For His glory,
~Erin

Polka Dot Pants.

    My little girl is growing up. Not by leaps and bounds yet but there are so many little things that are new. She is trying to count, so throughout the day I hear “One, two, one, two.” She has learned the power of the word “again.” She can put on some kinds of shoes all by herself. She can do so much compared to just 6 months ago!

    But this post is about the most recent development. Tonight she chose what she wanted to wear. She realized she had the ability to have input in what she was wearing. While this might seem like something small it seems huge to me. There is the potential for fit throwing. How do you explain to a 22 month-old that some days it's okay for her to pick out what she wants and some days she has to choose between the choices Mommy has for her?

    Even more important is the fact that soon to follow she will realize what she looks like. Once that happens there is a whole new realm of parenting. To this point I choose what to buy her, I choose what she wears, and I know I'm okay with it. She will need to be taught about modesty, about looking nice (without being prideful), about the appropriateness of clothes, and about more ideas than I can even think about right now.

    I know it will be a long time teaching all those things. But I didn't realize that the beginnings of these concepts would start so early. I know now I will need to think seriously about these things so that when the inevitable “why?” comes I have a better answer than “Because I said so.”

~Jessie

Just Getting Started....

I cannot throw myself headfirst into starting something as big (to me) as a blog without first giving some sort of introduction. Perhaps when this project is well underway, this first post will be forgotten, and anyone who may stumble upon this blog in the future will see so many posts that they will not need an introduction. That is the hope, anyway. Without further ado, here is our beginning.

My sister-in-law and I decided to start this together. We are both married to two handsome men by the last name of Mathews, and since we are a military family, we are often separated - and very far apart. Currently, my husband and I are living in interior Alaska, while she and her husband are living in Hawaii. My parents live in Virginia and my husband's parents live in Washington. As you can see, we are all spread miles apart. This is one of the main reasons I wanted to start a blog, so we can keep up with each other. Also, I like to talk. And it's nice to be able to get things out. I'm not sure if these are the same reasons Jessie wanted to start this, but I'm sure she will give her reasons in her next post.

I intend to post pretty much anything that comes to mind. I am a newlywed, married four and a half months, and am learning a lot about God and loving my husband, so there will most likely be a lot of thoughts on that. Jessie is also still fairly recently married (a few years now I think... but I'll let her tell you), has one daughter and another baby on the way. So there will probably be quite a few posts on homemaking, parenting, and marriage from her.

-Erin

I do intend to post on lots of topics. But as Erin said they will center around home life. This home is my center of focus right now so I will write about what I know. I have been married for two and a half years. I have a beautiful 22 month of girl and another little one on the way in January. In all this I am learning more and more about God and His plan for His people.


God has blessed my family with the ability to stay home. I get to fill my days with cleaning, cooking, and most importantly the daily in and out of training up my child. I will try not to bore you with my child's antics or the new ways I'm always finding to organize my house. I hope you find my posts to be at least entertaining and at best meaningful.


This is us, Jessie and Erin. Come along an join us in our great adventure of being married to Mathews.

-Jessie