The Former Miss

Usually I borderline dread Mondays – but all those thoughts fly out the window on Cyber Monday! Not being a fan of the insanely early store opening times, small inventories and ~~crazy~~ energetic shoppers that all occur on Black Friday, Cyber Monday gives me a chance to start off my Christmas shopping in my favorite pair of PJs with a nice cup of coffee all while taking advantage of some excellent sales.

While I am busy doing a little shopping this morning I wanted to feature a post from my friend Jenifer over at Feeding Nine on a Dime. I know I would certainly love some of Jenifer’s time management skills to rub off on me – I have no idea how she finds time to blog while raising 7 adorable children, but she does! Did I mention she homeschools them too? In fact, I think we could all learn a thing or two from her!

I feel the story she shared with me is especially fitting today – after a weekend of sales and running around the malls to find the perfect gift for those we love, sometimes the best gift of all is right under our noses, waiting to be discovered together. It’s never too early to remember the true reason for this season and to appreciate the gifts we already have.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Metal Detector – A Gift From God

Something happened this weekend that we just had to share. Some people had disappointed us, as people often do, and we were pretty down about it. So the kids decided to take a walk down the dry creek bed that runs along the side of our property and see what fun junk they could find.

They always found a good spot to play hideout or came back with little tidbits like an old bottle or really neat rocks. This time was different though, Zeb my fourth born, was walking along the dry river bed when he found something he thought was an old box sticking through the weeds and grass.

When he finished pulling and yanking it out of the grass he had discovered some kind of machinery. Neither he, nor the other children, realized what they were holding but they knew it was great because it was very interesting looking. For all they knew it could have been an alien trapping device or a super hero stun gun of some kind. After they had fully recovered the bulky item, Zeb marched proudly home with his find. As soon as I saw it, it brought back great memories of good times.

He had found an old metal detector. It’s head was dangling off by the connected wire that coiled around the its pole and a look at the battery told us that it wasn’t going to start right up. I just knew that it would work eventually. I felt God telling me that this was a gift from Him! I told them to go show their Dad what they had found because if anyone could fix it that would be their Dad. He just has a knack for electronic devises, mostly computers but I had seen him work his wonders on many a device.

When Dad saw the metal detector he took the old corroded battery out. He wasn’t really wanting to touch it because it was pretty oozy and gooey, but he did it for the good of the find. Next he hooked up some double A batteries to it to check if it would even work. Sure enough, right away the machine began to emit that notorious beeping noise. From there he soldered the batteries in and wound the duct tape around the head and the shaft of the pole. We have already tested it out but Dad plans to purchase a battery case and some super glue for the head of the detector.

We haven’t really used it full force yet because we were doing our bus visitation but we have already found a few coins and pieces of metal, nothing really valuable yet. God is good and now we can have many fun times using our metal detector.

Thanks for letting me share this story, Jenifer! That photo of Zeb is just too much! I hope you all make many fun memories with this Gift for years to come! Has anything like this ever happened to your family? Do tell! And be sure to pop over to Feeding Nine on a Dime for more from Jenifer.

Jenifer enjoys growing organic tomatoes, organic children, and a sugar free husband. Her favorite color is green and she loves wearing long skirts. A lot of her time is spent on keeping house crafting and homeschooling her seven children. When she is not doing that she is playing the piano, working on the church bus, and serving with her husband in his Sunday school class for youth. You can find her sharing about family life at: feedingnineonadime.com

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving with your family and friends! We shared the day with my Parents and Hubby’s Grandfather and are all very thankful for the many blessings of this past year.

Ever since I can remember Thanksgiving has been my favorite day! I love the anticipation that comes with knowing next few weeks will be full of seeing old friends, looking at Christmas lights, wearing sparkly things, everyone being extra nice and friendly, eating and drinking rich, delicious things, baking cookies, decorating, cuddling by the Christmas tree and celebrating with those we love! Umm, can you tell I love the Holidays?!?

Our weekend was full of Holiday Cheer!! We completely stuffed ourselves with a delicious meal, did a little Black Friday shopping and started decorating our home. The kick off to the Holiday Season would not be complete without some pictures! If you follow me on instagram you’ve already seen a few of these, but if not, enjoy! :)

Our Thanksgiving stuffing is my late Uncle’s recipe – might be my favorite-ist food ever!

My Mom got this adorable Turkey Mum for our table.
Our delicious Turkey!
Our latest food tradition – going strong for two years now – homemade cranberry sauce! Yum!
Turkey Butter for the Hubs!
Enjoying a romantic sunrise in the mall parking lot on Black Friday!
Proudly wearing my new shirt from American Signature’s gift bags – this will certainly become my new black friday uniform!
Channeling our inner Griswold’s for some outside decorating!