I am awake at 1am because I am wrestling with courage. Why am I wrestling with courage?
I have this idea, and it will take work and discouragement is setting in. It doesn't take alot for discouragement to get a foot hold and tear apart something.
I think of what God says about thinking on whatever is good. Courage is good, right?
Discouragement is the opposite of good, therefor evil, of Satan. Discouragement is like a cancer, it starts as a nagging little thing and grows into the death of an idea. I know that Satan does not want us to succeed, (well unless we are working for him) he likes to destroy us, he'd like us to just lay down and do nothing, to be a bump on a log, making no difference in this world, especially not a difference for God, let along doing something good for our fellow humans.
I struggle alot with discouragement, I want to lose weight and have the goal in mind when discouragement comes along and says.......why should you give up this or that, here have some M&Ms. Or I want to begin exercising and discouragement says....oh it is to muddy out to go for a walk, exercise is boring, why don't you sit down here at the computer (oh Adah) or read a book.
I know there are alot of things we have accomplished here that have taken pure courage, but it has not been my courage. I am a wimp when it comes to courage, I am easily swayed from things by the simplest remarks or thoughts. I would not, nor could I have done the things we have done here alone, I gain courage from my husband, but on the same note he can discourage me with a simple negative remark.
I need to gain courage to act on my ideas, despite what others may think, but how? I suppose courage needs exercise. I know I have courage, just like the cowardly lion had courage all along in the Wizard of OZ. It comes by baby steps, I guess.
How do I get discouragement to leave me alone, how do I overcome it? It comes in so many forms, such as the feeling of being overwhelmed, I get that one alot. Depression, too. It is like discouragement likes to stick out his foot and trip you up at every turn and then runs away laughing, as you fall on you face. It is usually a lie.....you can't do that, your not good enough, your not smart enough, your not good looking enough, your just going to fail and on and on it goes.
I remember how long it took me to get up the courage to make my first batch of soap, boy was I scared I would fail, it must have taken 6 months. I didn't fail and then I was off an running, but somehow courage requires new lessons with each new venture. Hummmmm.
That is it, isn't it?
Discouragements goal is to get you to fail before you even try. WOW.
What is the worst that can happen if one fails, of course depending on what it is.........at least in this case I won't die, I may have to pick myself up and dust myself off..............
Do you struggle with this?
Maybe I can sleep now, since I have talked about it with you all, thanks for listening.
Night.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Spring..Come..Spring
Oh am I ever ready for spring. Beautiful sunshine days are really calling me......BUT.....
the temps are still to low and the ground frozen. Very Big Sigh.
While pouring over my gardening catalogs I found a lighted growing rack, oh that is what I need!
It is still to cold out in the greenhouse during the night so I can't start seed yet, but I could do the rack..........until I looked at the price. Depending on which company, the prices range from just under $600.00 to just over $900.00. Well that is just to expensive.............SO..............
After talking it over with Kirk, we came up with our on version for $260.00, now we can do that and we can feel good about the expense. So here is what we did.
At Costco we found this rack for $100.00..........this is a very good price, anyplace else the price is considerably more.
Then at Home Depot we got 4 lighting fixtures for $18.00 each and
the bulbs for $10.00 each X 8.
Now mind you that ours is not as fancy in such areas as the cords. On the expensive ones all the lights are wired in and you can turn then on one at a time.......but I can turn mine on one at a time also........LOL. Oh one other thing the other one has is 4 bulbs per level, which is probably better because the light is more even all the way across the shelf, but I don't think that is worth that much money to me.
On the fancy ones you can adjust the light height with the twist of a couple knobs, I adjust mine with chains and S hooks. I can do these things to save 400 to 700 dollars. My rack is very heavy duty, it is meant to hold lots of weight out in a shop, yet, it is very nice looking. The other ones are made of light weight aluminum. Both mine and the expensive ones come with casters so they can be rolled from place to place.
The ones in the catalog also came with grow trays, but really, I already had mine and they certainly are not that expensive.
Below, my seeds are up after 4 days. So we are on the way to having lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, lemon balm, and some flowers. I did notice the tansy (planted last year) coming up in the greenhouse, but it is still to cold for seeds, it won't be much longer until we stop freezing out there, but in the mean time...........I have a head start.
the temps are still to low and the ground frozen. Very Big Sigh.
While pouring over my gardening catalogs I found a lighted growing rack, oh that is what I need!
It is still to cold out in the greenhouse during the night so I can't start seed yet, but I could do the rack..........until I looked at the price. Depending on which company, the prices range from just under $600.00 to just over $900.00. Well that is just to expensive.............SO..............
After talking it over with Kirk, we came up with our on version for $260.00, now we can do that and we can feel good about the expense. So here is what we did.
At Costco we found this rack for $100.00..........this is a very good price, anyplace else the price is considerably more.
Then at Home Depot we got 4 lighting fixtures for $18.00 each and
the bulbs for $10.00 each X 8.
Now mind you that ours is not as fancy in such areas as the cords. On the expensive ones all the lights are wired in and you can turn then on one at a time.......but I can turn mine on one at a time also........LOL. Oh one other thing the other one has is 4 bulbs per level, which is probably better because the light is more even all the way across the shelf, but I don't think that is worth that much money to me.
On the fancy ones you can adjust the light height with the twist of a couple knobs, I adjust mine with chains and S hooks. I can do these things to save 400 to 700 dollars. My rack is very heavy duty, it is meant to hold lots of weight out in a shop, yet, it is very nice looking. The other ones are made of light weight aluminum. Both mine and the expensive ones come with casters so they can be rolled from place to place.
The ones in the catalog also came with grow trays, but really, I already had mine and they certainly are not that expensive.
Below, my seeds are up after 4 days. So we are on the way to having lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, lemon balm, and some flowers. I did notice the tansy (planted last year) coming up in the greenhouse, but it is still to cold for seeds, it won't be much longer until we stop freezing out there, but in the mean time...........I have a head start.
Thursday, February 05, 2009
Chinking Again
Slowly but surly we are getting back to work. All the hard work we did before Christmas, though it was way more then worth it, really kicked our behinds. LOL.
Two weeks ago, (now you see how lazy I have become) we worked on doing some more of the chinking that we neglected last time around. This corner used to be the livingroom, but is now the diningroom, so before putting furniture in place we decided to finish this up. The wall appears to be fine, but those dark lines are open spaces, nice homes for spiders, flies and what have you, not to mention dust. Plus it goes right through to the insulation.
We found this product at Bloedorn's (a local hardware store). It is a great product for chinking between the boards, of course it is made for chinking between logs. You can get it in several different colors, I wanted bright white.
To get it out of the bucket you need this metal gasket with the hole in the middle, you attach the big chinking gun to it and pull back on the handle (takes alot of muscle) to fill the gun.
Note: Do not leave your gasket in the bucket between chinking projects, it will rust and makes a bit of a mess in the bucket.
Here you can see the chinking gun, the tip comes off and that is where you screw it into the gasket. The tip has a rubber hose on it to direct the chinking where you want it. After Kirk put it in the opening, I came along and cleaned up the line with a plastic spoon. We tried several different processes for this and found the spoon to be easiest and it could be throw away at the end, saved on sour fingers as well.
The finished wall. We also did the ceiling in the bathroom that day. It may not seem like that big of a job but it is, alot of up and down the ladder, and squeezing the chinking out of the gun is hard on the hand and arm, (not something I would beable to do, it take muscle).
It won't be long now and we will be back at the upstairs. We fingure to begin about the 1st of March, as the weather becomes more stable. I have a new thing to share with you next week, it has to do with gardening..............Until then.
God Bless
Two weeks ago, (now you see how lazy I have become) we worked on doing some more of the chinking that we neglected last time around. This corner used to be the livingroom, but is now the diningroom, so before putting furniture in place we decided to finish this up. The wall appears to be fine, but those dark lines are open spaces, nice homes for spiders, flies and what have you, not to mention dust. Plus it goes right through to the insulation.
We found this product at Bloedorn's (a local hardware store). It is a great product for chinking between the boards, of course it is made for chinking between logs. You can get it in several different colors, I wanted bright white.
To get it out of the bucket you need this metal gasket with the hole in the middle, you attach the big chinking gun to it and pull back on the handle (takes alot of muscle) to fill the gun.
Note: Do not leave your gasket in the bucket between chinking projects, it will rust and makes a bit of a mess in the bucket.
Here you can see the chinking gun, the tip comes off and that is where you screw it into the gasket. The tip has a rubber hose on it to direct the chinking where you want it. After Kirk put it in the opening, I came along and cleaned up the line with a plastic spoon. We tried several different processes for this and found the spoon to be easiest and it could be throw away at the end, saved on sour fingers as well.
The finished wall. We also did the ceiling in the bathroom that day. It may not seem like that big of a job but it is, alot of up and down the ladder, and squeezing the chinking out of the gun is hard on the hand and arm, (not something I would beable to do, it take muscle).
It won't be long now and we will be back at the upstairs. We fingure to begin about the 1st of March, as the weather becomes more stable. I have a new thing to share with you next week, it has to do with gardening..............Until then.
God Bless
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