Gratituesday: God Is Good To Us!

Today I'm thankful for God's goodness .

Our yard sale went very well on Saturday. We had lots of stuff to sell. We ended up with only 8 boxes of goods leftover plus the double stroller and a couple of chairs which we donated to a local thrift store that helps to fund a women's shelter. We also had a computer desk left but we set that out by the road in hopes that someone would pick it up. It was too big to fit in the car and we were too lazy to take it apart!

We had agreed ahead of time that we would price things low and then take any reasonable offers. Yes, we wanted to make money. But we really wanted to get rid of things. I look at it this way:  If I lower the price and somebody buys the item, I make more money than if I had remained firm on the price and they leave without making a purchase.

This method worked well for us. We sold a good 75% of our stuff and made more than we had ever made before at a yard sale. Most items were in the $.25 to $1 range. Maybe ten items were sold that were $5 or over. The rest were small items. Those little things add up, too!

One advantage I had at this sale was the amount of children's items I was getting rid of. Typically, kid's stuff sells well and our sale was no exception.

One of my first sales of the day was a young mom with her 3 children. They all picked out something to buy. She really wanted a chalkboard easel that I had for sale but wasn't able to purchase it. An older lady at the sale called out to her as she was leaving and said she would like to buy the easel for the mom and her children. It was so sweet! As the older lady paid, I remarked on her kindness. Her response, " I just finished putting together two shoe boxes for Operation Christmas Child. I love to help other children around the world. But if I can help children here at home, I want to do that too. " It was such a simple gesture but God's love clearly shown through her.

Another God-thing was when I went back to pick up all the signs after the sale ended and four of the signs had fallen down and blown away. We had not advertised in the paper. The signs that were gone were the key ones that would bring the most traffic. Clearly, God had orchestrated this to show His power. He brought the people to our sale!

Andy had some items up for sale on ebay last week, too. The auctions ended Saturday night. I had prayed earlier in the week about the items selling and asked God that the items would sell at specific amounts. Of course, I prayed that it would happen according to God's will. How exciting it was to me when the morning after I had prayed that prayer, 3 of the items had more bids, thus bringing the prices higher! By Saturday evening, the item that was worth the most and was the most popular, sold for just over the amount I had prayed for.

It's exciting to see how God provides for His children. He is so good to us!

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Gratituesday: The Simple Things

If you read here long enough, you'll realize that it doesn't take much to make me happy. The little events, the simplest things often fill my heart with thankfulness and praise.

This can seem rather silly sometimes. I did write a post about  scrapbook paper, after all!

Sometime this summer, I got some Hefty zipper bags for a wonderful price by combining a sale with coupons. I even told a friend about my awesome score, finishing the lively tale (complete with hand motions) with " And they were the zipper kind with the little slider on the top!" Apparently, this made me very happy.

Last week, I posted on Facebook how excited I was about the arrival of my gluten order. Yes. I am original.

I think I've created a pretty strong case for how much I like the little things!

Some simple things I'm thankful for today:

• The cool fall weather we're experiencing this week. The mornings are so nice and cool. Great for running!
• We had a nice wind yesterday. Actually, it was pretty strong at times and lots of branches came down around the neighborhood. I had laundry out on the clothesline and wind blowing through helped it to dry softer and more quickly.
• Yummy breakfast burritos this morning!
• A very successful show last Saturday. We sold  a lot of product! Praise the Lord!
• We listed a few items on ebay this week. They are already doing very well. Another praise!
• A nice walk with Cherished Dog this morning. 
• Cleaning out boxes and decluttering!

What simple things are you thankful for today? 

**Thanks to Laura of Heavenly Homemakers for hosting Gratituesday!

Gratituesday: An Exercise Partner

At the beginning of the year, I had grand and glorious plans of training to run a 5k at the beginning of March.

Oh yes. It was fun. Until I got started.

I did fine, actually. It was exceedingly difficult and I ran very slow but I was doing it. For someone who had never run any distance before, I did pretty well.

Well, the 5k in March never happened. I started to have excruciating knee pain. I could hardly walk, let alone run, for about 4-6 weeks. Added to the knee pain was that I could hardly breathe while running. I mean, why bother running if I have to use my asthma inhaler 3 times in 45 minutes when I can stay at home and feel great and never use meds for months at a time?

So I stopped running. I still walked every now and then, especially with the dog and childcare kids.

I didn't really like running that well anyways. So it wasn't much of a loss there.

But I still knew I needed to exercise more.

Fast forward to June. Somehow, I'm not sure how but a friend and I decided to meet a couple of times that week at a local park with a walking trail to walk together.

That was in June. And we're still going strong. We've met consistently 2-3 times each week since we started and I've even been motivated to exercise by myself on mornings that we don't meet.

After walking briskly for about 6 weeks, we decided to start running together. I was hesitant to get back into running(really, was I ever into it in the first place?!?)but you know what? It is a lot easier and more fun to do it with someone else. I am also much stronger this time around. And the park is a much nicer place to run than my neighborhood which tended to be a bit hilly and steep.

I'm not going to say that running is easy. It's not. I'm still slow and it's really hard work! But having a running companion make sit more fun and keeps me motivated when I want to quit! (And I do the same for her.)

We quote Philippians 4:13: "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength!" as we run together. If I am not out of breath, I sing it. Yeah, I'm just crazy like that.

I've been able to run 20 minutes straight this week which is the farthest I've ever done. Next week, I will start running a 30 minute stretch. After that, I'll work up to running 3.2 miles which is a 5k.

Oh yeah, I'm planning to run my first 5k on December 5th. I'm so excited!

Starting last week, we're now meeting the days we don't run or walk to do some strength training. One day we do exercises for our upper body and the other the lower body. Ouch!!! But it's great to have a friend to do this with.

So today, I'm grateful for a walking, running and exercise partner who also happens to be a great chiropractor!;-)

**Thanks to Laura at Heavenly Homemakers for hosting Gratituesday!

Gratituesday: Scrapbook Paper and The Guy Who Gave Them To Me!

Today's my birthday. My husband presented me with a gift first thing this morning. I love birthdays. I love gifts. That's just how I am!

He always takes great pleasure in going on long drawn out shopping trips whenever he is shopping for me for a special occasion. During which, I will call him repeatedly on his cell phone and try to figure out where he is and what he's buying. I'm just really sweet and caring like that.

Well, he went shopping last week and came home awfully excited about what he had purchased and what a great deal he had gotten. Fortunately for him, we had a really busy weekend and I didn't have time to badger him about it. Well, not too much.

So this morning he handed me two gift bags. In the biggest bag were 5 packages of Martha Stewart scrapbook paper. I had mentioned that one thing I'd like is some big packs of 12 x 12 papers or those blocks of paper that I've seen at different craft stores.

If you're rolling your eyes right now and wondering if I'm really going to write a whole post about how thankful I am for scrapbook paper, I will tell you. Yes, why yes, I am!

You see, I'm frugal and practical. The man I married, not so much. When we got married, he barely knew what the word budget meant, let alone how to live on one. How far we have come! Nowadays, he looks for deals when shopping and is careful to live below his means.

So when he says he got a really good deal, I get excited about that! Again, it doesn't take much to make me very happy!

After I opened my gift of paper, he could hardly wait to tell me what he spent on it. It turns out he went to Michael's and saw a Clearance display of these scrapbook papers outside the front door. "These are nice," he thought to himself as he picked one out that was marked at $6.98 and went to pay for it. After ringing it up, he was surprised when the cashier said the total was $.98! He was shocked and went and picked out 4 more packages. "The ones I thought you'd like the best," he told me. "I left the ones that weren't very pretty."

So I agree, he did really, really good. Really. $.98 a pack! I'm going to have so much fun creating with this wonderful paper.

But of course, I'm not just thankful for the paper. The paper is just a reminder of my husband who loves me just the way I am and seeks to bless me with little things that show his love and care. And since he knows how excited I get over a good bargain, he gets excited, too.

This is just one more reason I'm thankful for this man who is my husband!

**This post is part of Gratituesday hosted by Heavenly Homemakers.

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