Organizing my life

As I stated in some of my past blogs my life had been a bit out of control. Not in a bad way just really busy and I wasn't providing the same quality of care in my home. Much of what was going on is that I had all three girls in a dance academy. Don't get me wrong extra activities are good for kids but this is not just any dance school. This place creates professional. They build and train children to know how to have the discipline needed to be a prima ballerina. This is why i had my girls there. Between the three of them I was basically at the dance school every evening between 2-3 hours,  was working a second job and fighting each month to be able to pay for them all three. We had next to no time for house work, homework, alone times (time spent with each child alone) much less to go to the park and play. God began to speak to me about the issue explaining to me that it wasn't necessary. He helped me to analyze my reasons for having them there and most of my reasons were based in the fear that they would grow up to make some of the bad decisions I made as a youth. He helped me to see the reason I made those decisions was from a broken heart and a broken family and had nothing to do with the fact that I  was not passionate about something. Father God is so amazing like that. I love how he helps me to make decisions based on His reality and not mine. Because many times mine is messed up due to old habits or thought processes. So after fighting with God a bit about the ballet issue I relented and right now I couldn't be happier about His decision. Over the last few weeks I have been making my organizers which I use to always use. After the near miss of moving to Canada all my organizing things got trashed and I just never got around to making more. I hope you enjoy them. I know they are not as crafty as many you will find but I also believe in letting my girls help me a lot with this stuff. And to me having them help makes it even more awesome. 

 The above picture is our weekly menu. Its made from part of a Ritz Crackers box covered in scrapbook paper. Then I used cards to leave a space for writing. After placing a couple pretty stickers I put it in a plastic paper cover so that it can be erasable. Each week on Saturday me and my oldest daughter check out my cook books and Pinterest to find what we want to make for school snack (refrigerio) 2 o'clock lunch (comida) and dinner. Usually we don't put breakfast because we know its either cereal, rice or oatmeal. As we write out the menu we keep track of what we need to buy from the store and write it on one of the papers noted below.

 I did this only because tacks seem to constantly disappear and the the papers seem to always be falling into the floor. Si I made little pockets on the tack board for the most frequent items. Also this way we can use recycled paper for the shopping list.

 This is our chore list. I needed something practical. So I have a list of what we have to finish each day, each week and each month. I have three girls, my husband and a cousin who all live here and help with the chores. This is a way each person who does something can mark it off and that way we are doing what needs to be done and not always the same thing. Again this was made from the other side of the cracker box and was placed in a plastic paper cover so it can be used and reused with a dry erase marker. So far this is working perfectly. I have another small calendar in which I put the girls initials if they help each day with a smile on their faces with out grumbling or fighting. They get 1 peso for each day that they clean in this way. Doesn't sound like much but if they do well all 6 days that's 6x3 each week for Moma.

And last but certainly not least our calendar. I had an old dry erase board from when we were giving classes at home. Its frame was completely gone and looked pretty rough. I simply placed scrapbook paper around the boarder and covered it in tape in case the marker got on it it could be erased. Then I drew out the weekly and monthly calendar with sharpie. The monthly calendar doesn't have the month or the day numbers. Also we decided to start working on memory verses for the girls. Its something that I have always treasured from my childhood and the verses I learned continue to help me in my life. Each Saturday when I do my menu I also write out the activities for the week on the weekly calendar. It starts at 2 pm because that is when we get home from school.

Well thats that folks. My life is a well oiled machine....no te crees, hahahahaha.

Is there anybody out there?

So I have been away from my blog for a whole year now. I wrote a post last week and obviously very little movement there. But then I went to check my blog feed and I noticed that the majority of the people I follow haven't blogged in 2-4 YEARS!!! Wait what?!?!?!?!?!? How did this happen. Now I have to clear out my blog feed and find where all my buddy bloggers have gone. Also I want to find some new blogger buddies. I now am teaching in a kinder and I know I can find and give all kinds of inspiration in that aspect. Sure my blog will continue to be about life in Mexico because... well... that's where my life is but I since I no longer have to deal with immigration stuff I don't plan on posting much on that. I'm excited to get back to reading Leslie's posts so I can get my kitchen spiced back up again. The last year was pretty chaotic and with very little organization or free time for me to do the things I love such as crafts, cooking and blogging. But this is a new year and I am confident I will be able to get back on the ball here. As proof I'm going to post a pic of my new whiteboard calendar that I made. Attached to each side will be our menu, grocery list and chores charts.

Disappearing act.

Oh Blogging world, how I have thought of you over the last year and a half. I have actually written many blogs but none of them have left my head and gone into the keypad. I'm wondering if I'm even still on your feeds or if I have lost all my readers. If so I hope to earn  you all back with some new and fresh blogs. My life is wonderful right now and we are very happy in many of the things that are going on.

My last blogs were about the process of getting us to Canada. Long story short we quite our jobs, gave away or sold most of our stuff and had arranged for everything else to be given away then our visas got denied. Mine included. It said I didn't have sufficient reason to be going. Which makes no since because I was enrolled in nursing school and had been accepted by the nursing board in Canada. The day we got our envelopes from the immigration office Issac and I were alone and we opened them in the car. We both just kinda sat and looked out our papers a min trying to understand all the mumbo jumbo that they put on them.

I finally said, "I think mines denied." 

Issac says, "Me to." 

We just looked at each other and traded papers. We read each others papers. 

And I said, "Well that's that. What do we do now?"

We decided the first thing we wanted to do was to go talk to our pastor and tell him we are staying and we are ready to serve in any way he needed us. Then we needed to figure out the car situation. We had already started to sell it to a friend of mine from work and he had paid us half the money. Lastly we had to find a place to live. Our lease was up and after three years of living on the fourth floor we were ready for something new. 

That's right folks there were not tears and no sadness just a sense of we need to get on a roll here. I was actually relieved. Not sure if you remember in any of my blogs but I was pretty worried about not having any family, about the cold, about how we were going to make it, about not having the church family we finally had. And by now I know all those answers here in Mexico. 

We left from the immigration office with all this on our minds and headed to pick up our girls. They were staying with Issacs cousin who had recently moved to our city. When we got there and told them about the denial Issac uncle didn't believe him. He knows how Issac is always joking. So he looked to me and said Amanda really whats going on. 

"Hes telling the truth. Were not going." I said.

"But why are you guys smiling and laughing." he asked. 

That's when I realized that we really were happy about the denial. There was a lot to be done but we were glad to get to stay. 

Our cousins were pretty happy to. The reaction of almost everyone one was,"Can I be happy about this?" And our answer was always "Of course. We are!!" Followed by a big hug. 

Our Church pastors and leaders had thrown us a going away party so when we went to tell our pastor we told him we expected a welcome back party. Hahahahahah We actually had a lot of fun with that one. 

God really started putting everything in order for us right away. A friend from church happened to hear a guy needing to rent his house ASAP and cheap so he set us up with him. Went from a small two bedroom apartment on the fourth floor to a three bedroom house. Yeah!!!!! Way less stairs and more space. We now have been in this house for a year and it looks like were on for the next one also. Our friend who was buying the car understood the situation 100% and let us return them money he had paid us and we kept our car. The owner of the girls ballet school who is also a very good friend sent a recommendation to her kids kinder for me to work as an English teacher. I got an email for the job without even knowing. I went in very skeptical but they gave me a great offer and although last year was a year full of learning a lot of new things and growing a lot I now love love love my job. My husband continued teaching private classes but has recently also gotten a job at a call center. And in October of last year we became co-pastors at our church. (thats a blog in itself) Wow I look back at all that and I see how amazing my God is. 

After the denial God brought me to the verses where Abraham was asked to sacrifice Isaac. Abraham made the long trip knowing what it entailed, answered the questions of his child the best he knew how and continued with this crazy plan God had given him even though in his heart it didn't match up with his dreams that he was sure God had given him. Thankfully as he raised the knife God said,"STOP!!" This was how I felt. That God had given me back my Isaac. The funny thing was that without telling anyone about what I was feeling the following weeks were full of people giving me words of knowledge referring to the same verses and the same theme. That's the great thing about being in a church with a prophetic awakening, you never run out of confirmation on something God is telling you. 

This last year was insane to say the least but things are going great and God has assured me of many things. One of which is more time for the things I love; my family, my church, crafts and my blog. So I will be seeing you all more. And I'm looking forward to getting caught up on all your lives also. 

Bye for now, Ill be back soon.